


why does the caged bird sing?

by Leutik



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: Escapism, F/F, Utopia/Dystopia AU, black mirror vibes (but not a crossover), commitment issues, instrumentalization of religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:48:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29239350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leutik/pseuds/Leutik
Summary: we're in the future. people have built small cities, called aviaries, where people are led in life by an algorithm that always knows what's best for them, called the aviculturist.shelby and toni find themselves in this utopical environment, but still manage to screw everything up.
Relationships: Fatin Jadmani/Leah Rilke (mentioned), Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Comments: 15
Kudos: 64





	1. delphinium

**Author's Note:**

> from scenes i to xxxiii there are flashbacks, even if it's all written in the present tense. scene xxxiv is where the actual timeline starts. most of the time there's written "they're ten when..." so it should be easy to follow.

##  _ xxxiv — toni _

No such thing as happiness. One has to endure. Keys, lock. New place and new smell, the new colors aren’t too bad. To endure to live, but no such thing as life. Survival, at most. There is a little flower pot at the entrance, and Toni wonders if  _ the person _ has put it beforehand, or if it was the Avi’s doing. Toni also wonders if she got assigned a person. One single person, or none. Perhaps more than one? She wonders if in the Avi’s book she’s considered monogamous. Hell, she wonders if she’s considered straight. But no such thing as happiness happens. No such thing as perfect control either, but she knows the Avi will just tell them all mistakes are made on purpose. To make them all better. Fuck, she’s tired. A hand rubbing her eyes, black dots behind them. Half-past eight in the evening.

Toni scoffs, as she stops staring at the little flower pot. It has a delphinium in it, its petals ranging from purple to blue. Truly beautiful. Toni hopes it’s  _ the person  _ who put the flower there, because it would give them aesthetic taste, at least.   
She takes her coat off, hanging it at the entrance, and she takes her shoes off as well. It’s weird knowing she’ll have to adapt to this new place. It’s different for Toni, because she has a choice. She has a brain. But one thing at a time. She wonders if  _ they _ ’re already at home.

There’s a chirping. It’s dull, it’s persistent, and it feels oddly sweet. High-pitched. As if crying for something.

She walks further inside the house, following the noise, with no baggage with her, as the Avi texted her that all her belongings would be moved already, by the time she got there.   
The living room is clear of any soul, and Toni takes a moment to walk around the room. It scales from grey tones to teal ones, and she feels like a fish in a tank. It’s ironic. An image she should use more often, rather than the bird and the cage. Because she feels like suffocating as well — but one thing at a time. A few steps further and she sees the electric fireplace. Some pictures hanging on the walls. She gets closer to them, and that’s when she sees  _ her _ . But no, it can’t be, right? Perhaps she’s the person’s relative. But there’s only her all around the room. All around all rooms. Toni looks in the kitchen, in the bedroom, in the study, in the bathroom, on the balcony. Running, panting. Because it can’t be her, but there’s only pictures of her and pictures of Toni. Even pictures of the both of them, for fuck’s sake. So it  _ must  _ be her.

Toni walks in the kitchen and pours herself a drink, having gladly found some scotch in the cabinet. The Avi knows her, after all. Looking for some ice, she finds all sorts of sweet sugary and fruity drinks in cans, and that must be for  _ her _ . Typical. Toni didn’t expect any different. At least some things don’t change.

But it isn’t enough. Toni knows it. Because there is no such thing as happiness. And to endure, it’s easier alone. So she chugs her drink, closes her eyes, and feels them get wetter behind her eyelids.

##  _ xxxv — shelby _

Hand on the doorknob. Shelby frequently asks herself what it must be like living  _ outside _ . Outside of the Aviary. Shelby is well aware of how lucky she is: lucky to be born in this time in history, with all her comfort, under the Avicultuist’s wise advice. If an AI can be wise, that is.

There is a nice flower pot by the entrance. Shelby likes flowers, she likes their smell, albeit she never bothered looking into their names and meanings. She truly can’t wait to meet whoever the Aviculturist chose for her.

There’s chirping, and she’s never been much of a pet person, so she knows it must be  _ them _ . It’s good, because it shows a caring person already. Perhaps the flowers are on them too. Someone that values all forms of life.

Walking around the rooms, she feels a little unsettled by the cold and dull colours. It must be one of the many middle-grounds she’ll have to work with whoever— 

It’s the pictures. The pictures catch Shelby’s eyes like a bright flower would catch a bee. She flies towards them, as she scans them. It  _ can’t  _ be. But the Aviculturist is never wrong. Perhaps this one time? No, it can’t be.

« Surprised much? » Is a voice behind her shoulders. Shelby turns around in the bat of an eye, even if she doesn’t need to see her. She didn’t even need to see the pictures, for that matter. Her voice, with that raspy note to it, as if she still smoked — and Shelby bets she still does — is still unmistakable.

Toni is leaning with her shoulder on the doorframe, as if she owns the place already. Shelby knows she must have arrived a quarter-hour ago at most, if she ended up working in sanitation. Not that Shelby would remember that.

So Shelby huffs some air with an open smile, because indeed she was surprised. « I haven’t seen you in two years. » And it’s true, her smile is genuine, because she has, indeed, greatly missed her. She’s missed her like crazy.

But Toni nods, serious as ever. « Indeed. »

They stay like that for a moment, and Shelby has no idea what to say. Do they need to catch up? Perhaps that’s all a giant prank. Yes, it must be, as Toni is the kind of person who would do such a thing. Even after all that time. Even to her.

Shelby opens her mouth, but before she can say anything, Toni has already disappeared in the corridor, telling her that « There are your shitty drinks in the fridge. »

Shelby hesitates. She doesn’t know why, not fully, because that is going to end soon. She’s going to walk in the kitchen and find the actual person the Aviculturist chose for her.

Except there is no one, but Toni, again.

##  _ i — toni _

They’re five, the first time they meet. They’re five and their parents are looking at them behind a glass wall, that looks as big as everything else, from their stature. Toni has no idea why she’s here, but she’s fine with it, as long as she keeps playing with all those other kids. There are tons of them. Toni estimates at least ten, but she heard her mother mumble something about fifty. Fifty kids to play with for the day.   
And for the next day too. And for the following as well.   
It’s gradual, and Toni almost doesn’t notice it. Almost. Her mother told her that this is school,  _ “first school” _ , and that she’ll stop picking her up, at some point. That’s why it doesn’t feel gradual to her: she’s pretty sure her mother wasn’t supposed to tell her that, because she alternates feeling joyful for the playing, and feeling scared to death, looking for her mother in the crowd. And every time it takes her too long to locate her, she feels herself panting, her chest tightens, her vision gets blurry.

It’s during one of those occasions that she meets her. She doesn’t know her name is Shelby yet, but she has those beautiful blonde curls, tied up in a pair of pigtails, and big emerald eyes that instantly calms Toni down. Because she looks funny, and she looks as if they got her out of a cartoon.   
Shelby, that first time, places a hand on Toni's shoulder, and asks her: « Are you still playing with that? »   
Toni follows where the blonde girl is pointing at with her eyes, and she hands her the little truck she’s playing with. She didn’t want it, anyways.   
Shelby takes it, but before walking away, she looks at Toni. « If you still want it we can play together. »   
And that’s when Toni knows for sure that they picked her from a cartoon, because such things never happen in real life. She has to fight for her toys, and she has to protect them when she gets them.   
So she doesn’t waste the chance, and follows the girl.

##  _ xxxvi — toni _

Toni opens the fridge for her and tosses her a can, blindly, and she knows Shelby caught it when she doesn’t hear anything fall on the ground.

« Do you want any? » Shelby has the audacity to ask her. Toni scoffs and shakes her head. Always her altruistic self. She hasn’t changed a bit in fifteen years, has she.

« Nah, I’m good. Those things skeeve me out. » Besides, she’s still drinking her inch of scotch.

She sees Shelby shrugging from the corner of her eye, and as Toni gulps down the rest of her alcohol, she hears the distinctive sound of a can being opened. It takes a second for Toni to smell the excessive sweetness of the drink, and she can’t help but flare her nostrils and blink.

« You’re so dramatic. » Shelby comments, and Toni feels outraged.

« It’s not my fault you still have the taste buds of a toddler. »

Shelby laughs, right before bringing the can to her mouth, and Toni snaps her tongue on the roof of her mouth. Her gaze lingers, as the column of Shelby’s throat welcomes the drink.   
Her blonde hair is now somewhere between a dusty and an ashy colour, and her defined curls are now more of a messy mane.   
And what gets on Toni’s nerves, is how beautiful she still looks,  _ despite everything _ .

##  _ ii — shelby _

Her parents did an amazing job in explaining everything she needed to know. Shelby listened, her feet swinging in the air as she couldn’t reach the floor. Her father told her that she could set an example for other kids, in “first school”. She had to be good and she had to share her toys. She has to play with quiet kids and include them. He told her that they would be watching her, so she needed to be a good kid. Shelby  _ was  _ a good kid. She didn’t need to be threatened like that, but the thought never fully developed. She just nodded, and they drove her there.

There is a big sign at the entrance, and as Shelby was learning how to read, she spells one of the words out loud: « Aviary. » It’s written everywhere, as if being a signature of some sort.

« Good job! » Her mom tells her, clapping from the passenger seat. Shelby fidgets with the seatbelt, sitting straighter on the child seat. She likes being praised. Hell, she  _ loves  _ being praised. So she spells everything else her eyes can find, until they park.

She doesn’t mind staying at the first school. She would rather stay at home with her parents, but she never expresses that, because she knows that they know better. She tries playing with other kids, but they’re loud and violent and Shelby isn’t used to company. She has many siblings, but they’ve been raised like she has, so they aren’t half as savages as those kids. So she stands alone, quietly, picking up the toys that the kids leave around.   
She’s bored to death most of the time.

There are a few other kids like her, she notices. Other kids who don’t really like playing with others, or who are too shy or too afraid to do so. So Shelby tries engaging with them, but they’re no fun, and soon it feels like a duty to her.

There’s one child Shelby can’t stand. She’s loud, she has dark curly hair that reaches just above her shoulders. Shelby likes her hair, but she doesn’t like her attitude. She runs and she screams as most children do, but she steals toys and holds them like they’re hers.

So once she’s quiet, once the days are all blurred together and Shelby can’t pinpoint if a week has passed or perhaps a month — Shelby comes closer. She gets quiet all of a sudden, and when she does it’s like she has an extracorporeal experience. Shelby learned that long word once in church, and she uses it as a weapon, because the adults are always impressed when she says it.

So Shelby asks her if she can have her truck, just to say something, albeit Shelby never understood the appeal of small vehicles as toys. Surprisingly, the child who she’ll learn is called Toni, hands her the toy with no second thought.   
Shelby feels angry at her, for some reason, for not putting up a fight. So she asks her if she wants to play with her. And she asks her the next day, and the day after that one too.   
And that’s how it starts.

##  _ xxxvii — shelby _

Shelby doesn’t know what to do with herself. It’s always been like that around Toni, she knows. She can’t recall a single time she wasn’t feeling confident around other people, but with Toni’s indifference? She truly never knew how to act.

So Shelby drinks her drink as slowly as she can, looking around from time to time, trying to make small talk.

« So, what do you do now? » She asks, as Toni is pouring some more golden liquid in her glass. And if Shelby feels poetic enough, she’d go as far as considering that the liquid kind of looks like her skin. On the verge of being tan and olive, almost exotic, almost  _ wild _ . That’s the only way she ever managed to describe her. Unpredictable and wild.

Toni looks at her with a raised eyebrow, in such a Toni-esque way Shelby can’t really shake off her. As if she was already fed up with her, with a single question. It boils Shelby’s blood in her veins, but she keeps quiet nonetheless.

« As if you didn’t know already. »

It’s true, Shelby knows. But even if Shelby had a different job she could have guessed, since she saw Toni in her same specialization block.

« I’m still asking. »

« Why? » 

Shelby can’t contain a sigh this time, because she really has no idea why she has to be so difficult all the time. She truly hasn’t changed a bit.

Toni looks at her, as she asks: « What do  _ you  _ do? »

Shelby knows she must have an idea, as she’s pretty sure Toni saw herself in her own area of the school too. Yet, because she knows some manners, Shelby explains: « I’m in maintenance. »

Toni looks at her as if thinking “no shit”, and Shelby fights the urge to roll her eyes. « Of what? »

« Of tech, but it’s mostly administrative business. »

She sees Toni blinking, then low whistling. Shelby adds, gesticulating: « It isn’t a big deal, I just have to check digital maintenance of the Aviculturist’s algorithms— »

« The Avi? Damn. » 

« Again, it’s not a big deal— »

« Did  _ you  _ get us in this situation? » It’s quick, it’s sharp, and as Toni asks so, she’s pouring herself some more alcohol. It feels like an accusation, like a stabbing, and Shelby feels the urge to stop her, but she knows it’s not her place anymore.

« Of course not. »

Toni scoffs, and Shelby realizes how she must have sounded. “ _ Of course _ ”. As if, if she could, she would have changed it. And, well, Shelby doesn’t even want to ask herself the question, but that’s not something Toni needs to know. No reason to give her more fuel to her hot temperament.

Toni swallows the rest of the drink and leaves the glass in the sink, walking out of the room.

Shelby’s eyes follow her, then look at the glass. She clashes and throws her can in the bin and washes Toni’s glass, ready to report whatever she can to work, the next day.

##  _ iii — toni _

The very day their parents abandon them — because that’s what happened, and no one can change Toni’s mind — they’re brought to a sort of small square. They’re shown their dorms, their school, the park. It’s too much of a coincidence when Toni is assigned to a dorm with four other girls, and amongst them there’s Shelby.

It’s too much of a coincidence when Toni is assigned to a class with twenty-four other girls, and Shelby sits at the desk next to hers.   
It’s weird but not unwelcome. It feels like someone is watching over them, but perhaps it’s destiny, and when Toni tells Shelby that much, Shelby answers that perhaps it’s god. Toni has never even heard the word, and she patiently listens to Shelby as she tells her all about it.

The first day of school Toni can’t wait for their first break. They’re given different books every hour, and they see a different teacher babbling about god knows what every hour as well. Toni tears a sheet of paper from the notebook she’s given to make a small airplane, but Shelby puts a hand on it to lower it under the desk, when the teacher for that hour turns their gaze towards them.   
Toni is grateful, but there’s something else. There’s a hunger for being stopped, a hunger for Shelby’s attention, anything to urge her to focus on herself and herself only again. As soon as the teacher looks somewhere else, Toni is throwing the airplane somewhere in the middle of the class, and as soon as she does that, she turns to check on Shelby — all wide eyes and open mouth. She’s pleased in seeing her shocked, with a hand on her lips, She’s pleased until she no longer is, as Shelby looks at her as if she was angry. As if Toni shouldn’t have done it, as if Shelby has warned her once already, and she let her down. It feels like something is eating Toni from within, and she’s so confused, she’d eat her own hands.   
When the teacher asks whoever did that, Toni feels the urge to point at Shelby. It’s irrational and she gets a hold of herself, but as Shelby looks at her so intently, she stands up. And that’s the first time Toni gets punished.

##  _ iv — shelby _

Shelby loves playing on the playground. The children in her class are calmer, and over the past year they’ve bonded plenty. They’re six years old now. Shelby knows her father would tell her she’s a grown-up, now. Shelby can’t shake the feeling that her father is watching her. She wonders if he’s pleased with her. She wonders if the kids are doing better thanks to her, if she set an example, if she’s useful.

Shelby loves staying on the playground because she manages to make some other friends, apart from Toni. Shelby isn’t really sure if she and Toni are actual friends, because Toni always seems to try and get on her nerves. She always picks the pencils Shelby is reaching for, she always puts her bed sheets all over the place, she always hides her things from her, and laughs when Shelby has to admit defeat and ask her to fetch them.

She befriends every single one from their class, and one in particular: her name is Martha, she has a kind-looking face and the lightest character Shelby has ever witnessed. She feels like the polar opposite of Toni, who has dark hair, dark eyes and a dark sense of humor. If Shelby would go further, she’d also say that Toni has a dark temper too. A dark character and dark reasons, but she isn’t sure herself what she means by that. There’s just something so dark about her.

And Shelby has yet another proof of that while she’s playing with Martha on the playground, building sandcastles.   
It’s a matter of seconds, and Toni’s shoes are stomping on said castle, prompting Martha to cry. Toni is laughing, but when she turns to face Shelby, her laugh dies on her lips. She looks sorry all of a sudden and that drives Shelby even crazier, because she should have thought about it sooner. Shelby stands up, takes Martha by the hand and they walk away.

##  _ xxxviii — shelby _

Shelby is brushing her teeth, watching her own reflection in the mirror. She looks tired, as she always does by this hour of the evening. She spits in the sink, rinses and gargles.   
She looks once more, and her eyebags are staring back at her, mockingly. She wonders if Toni is still determined in fleeing from the Aviary, into the wilderness. Perhaps that’s where she belongs.

She doesn’t want to be in this situation just as much as Toni, apparently. Except she knows how to not show it. Because she has manners, and common sense. And if Toni truly hasn’t changed, Shelby knows that she will leave.

That feels like a joke, right now. It feels as if the Aviculturist was mocking her. But she knows that it has many ways, and one of them is teaching her patience. Perhaps Toni truly is— She can’t fully develop the thought. She did once already, and it went so, so poorly. Shelby would like to survive this one time, thank you very much.

She walks into the bedroom and finds it empty. There are two wardrobes, and she opens one. She smells, before she sees it, that it must be Toni’s part of the wardrobe. Shelby lingers at that.  _ Fuck. _ So, so pathetic. She closes her eyes. A perfume that comes from a mixture of smoking and that pine tree soap she stubbornly still uses. Shelby saw it in the shower and on the sink, moments ago. But she chose to avert her eyes. Apparently that was the Lord’s way of admonishing her from ignoring his signs.

##  _ xxxix — toni _

« You really shouldn’t smoke. » Is Shelby’s voice, joining her on the balcony. Toni is holding up on the glass-rail with her elbows, the chill evening air gently blowing on her skin. The bird is here. On the balcony, and perhaps it’s making so much noise because it’s too cold for it. They should move it inside.

« Yeah, well, I usually don’t. » She leaves implicit that desperate times call for desperate measures. She still looks in front of her, as she hears Shelby taking a seat on the hammock. Toni knows that it’s been put there for Shelby: she’d never entrust her tailbone to a swinging thread.

« So… » Shelby starts, as Toni closes her eyes. She’s trying to small-talk. She’s trying to catch up with her, or some shit.

« What have you been up to? »

##  _ v — toni _

« What’s your problem, Toni? What did Martha do to you? »

Toni has pushed her, this time. They’re seven, and she pushed her on school grounds, so Toni just got out of detention, Shelby waiting for her outside, with that angry face she’s started to wear around Toni. She knows she dragged this upon herself, but she just can’t help it. She sees them and she sees red. Her hands feel itchy, and they  _ have  _ to hit something. She’s told that she needs to pick a sport, like a relief valve. Of course Toni isn’t going to. She won’t listen to the stupid advice, because they don’t know her, not like she knows herself. So no, she won’t pick a goddamn sport. She’d rather hit her stupid classmates.

« Why do you hang out with her? She’s too stupid for you. » Is Toni’s answer, as they start walking back to their dorm. They have one hour before they need to be in the mess hall, and Toni doesn’t want to waste it talking about stupid Martha. She’d rather have Shelby’s attention all to herself, like it used to be. It’s happening less frequently, and Toni loathes it.

« It’s not your place to decide who I should hang out with. » 

They’re only seven, but Shelby has always been very mature for her age. Toni is always impressed by her choice of words. She sounds twelve at least, even if Toni has never spoken to twelve years olds.

« Maybe it should be. » Toni answers, but she doesn’t even know what she means by that. All she knows is that her hands ball into fists, and she shoves them in her pocket. Her backpack is swinging on a single shoulder, and her pace gets quicker. She wants to be near Shelby, but not like this. Not if she’d rather be with someone else. She walks until she outruns her, and as soon as she gets in their dorm, she jumps in the shower.

She eats on a table alone, that evening.

##  _ xl — shelby _

« Can I have a puff? » Shelby asks again, in response to Toni’s silence.

She sees her turning instantly towards her, surprised. « I thought one shouldn’t smoke. »

Shelby shrugs her embarrassment away, and just extends her hand. She’s right, one shouldn’t smoke. But desperate times. She’ll do anything, at this point. And if Toni truly is leaving, then she might as well— Well, Shelby doesn’t know what. She doesn’t know what to make in five days to redeem twenty years of friendship. Friendship, or whatever it is that was going on between them.

As she inhales the nicotine, it feels like being thrown ten years in the past. She coughs, and when she opens her eyes, expression morphed in disgust, she sees Toni looking at her with amusement.   
That’s enough to remind Shelby why she never started smoking, and the second time Toni offers her the cigarette, she declines with a polite smile. Toni just rolls her eyes, as if smoking or not was a matter of toughness. That’s stupid, and Shelby pushes down the urge to prove her something, like she’s done so many times before.

« We really don’t have to do the whole catching-up thing » Is Toni’s answer, a bunch of seconds later, to Shelby’s previous question. Shelby hadn’t expected anything different, really.

« What if I want to? » Is Shelby’s remark, but as soon as the words leave her mouth, she instantly regrets them. The unimpressed look Toni shoots her doesn’t help.

She scoffs, « Why would you. » 

Shelby swings a little on the hammock, before standing up and joining Toni by the rail, the bird between them. She sees Toni tensing a little by the corner of her eye, but Shelby doesn’t pay much attention to it. She must still have that weird fight or flight response she never got rid of.   
Looking right in front of her, the smell of smoke and Toni’s skin fill her nostrils. The cold hair gives her goosebumps, and she clings to her pastel pink jumper. It’s dark outside, as dark as it gets close to ten in the evening, on a May night. They’re on the third floor, and if Shelby squints her eyes, she can see the borders of their Aviary.

« It’s pretty, isn’t it? » She can’t help but ask out loud, a thought that escaped her lips.

She hears Toni humming, after a second. And after a few more, pensive, she adds: « They had to make it pretty, at least. »

With that she puts the cigarette in the ashtray and leaves.


	2. liquorice root sticks

##  _vi — shelby_

They’re ten when they’re handed their pagers. It’s the fifth of May, and the teacher tells them to preserve them. To keep them always near them. To consult them often, when making a choice, when feeling lost. The teacher tells them it’s like a friend, like a guide, like a _parent_ .   
That’s what catches Shelby’s attention, and that’s why she obeys.

The class they’re moved to, when they’re ten, doesn’t have Martha in it. Shelby is quite sad to say goodbye to her, because knowing their rhythms, she knows she will hardly ever see her again.  
It’s a good thing though, because Toni starts smiling at her more often. To Shelby it feels like she’s willing to build their complicity back, now that Martha is gone. Shelby still isn’t sure why Toni disliked her that much, but she won’t ask again. Every time she did, Toni would just shut down, all their progress lost in a stupid question.

They still sit next to each other. They’re in the back of the class this time, and as Shelby knows it will be harder to follow the lessons, but she can tell Toni is thrilled by it.

« Some rest now, thank god. »

Shelby doesn’t know how to feel about the use Toni does of the word “god”. It’s a filler word for her, devoid of any meaning. Shelby asked her multiple times to go to church with her, but every time Toni would ask her why she went in the first place. A discussion would start, and they would leave on bad terms. Toni would call her stupid, and Shelby would call her stupider. In her defence, she’s never been strong on insults.  
Shelby never fought that much with anyone else. Thinking about it, Shelby only ever fought with Toni.

« What’s up Shelbs? » Toni asks, putting her shoes on the desk.

Shelby eyes the shoes, then Toni, then the door through which the teacher will get any time now.

« You shouldn’t do that. »

« Why not? It’s not like they’re dirty. »

« Of course they are, we walked here! »

« There are sanitation workers for that. »

« I’m pretty sure sanitation workers don’t work so that you can put your shoes on the desk. »

« Why the fuck do you have to be so uptight all the time? »

It’s the first time Toni cusses, and it takes Shelby aback. She opens her mouth, and then closes it. They’re just kids. They shouldn’t speak like that. Neither should adults, for that matter.

But it’s what Toni says next that feels like a stabbing to her heart. « What, Shelbs, never heard a bad word before? Are you that much of a princess? » And after that, Toni snaps her tongue behind her teeth, as if out of disgust. As if she wasn’t tough enough for her.  
And what Shelby absolutely hates, is the urge that she feels to _cuss_. Knowing it’s something she shouldn’t do. Just because Toni thinks it’s cool to.

So Shelby turns her head and looks in front of her, the rest of the class spent in silence.

##  _xli — toni_

Toni didn’t even ask her. She brushed her teeth, put her pajamas on and laid on the couch. Of course she isn’t going to share a bed with fucking Shelby Goodkind. She’s not that desperate.  
Desperate for what, Toni doesn’t want to think about.

She brought the cage inside with her, because the bird will freeze to death instead, right? She wonders if it was left outside the previous night too, and if it suffered for that. Abandoned to itself.

She turns the tv on, zapping on channels, before turning it off. She doesn’t feel like exposing herself to more propaganda. It’s only news, documentaries and selected short films. Toni feels like plucking her eyes out of her sockets. She’d rather watch the cartoons her mother used to put on when Toni was being a tad too difficult to handle.  
Perhaps that’s when it started. Give people a hard time, and they’ll give you what you want. Until Toni no longer wants a thing. No such thing as happiness, when desire dies. But she does want something, and perhaps she wants it exactly because she can’t have it.

She sees Shelby walking in the living room as if on cue, eyeing her and saying nothing. That’s right. Too much of a coward to call her out on anything, huh. Toni didn’t expect any less.  
She knows she’ll regret it, but her mind wanders to that one time.

##  _vii — toni_

They’re thirteen. They’re thirteen, and Shelby is excelling in class, right next to Toni, who is failing every single subject. But it’s always been like that, so it doesn’t surprise any of them.  
Toni asks Shelby how a problem is solved, and she shows her. Toni asks Shelby what they have to study, Shelby tells her. And Toni tries. She tries, every single time. She tries harder than she intends to, harder than there’s any reason for her to, because Shelby is excelling. And Toni knows it’s very different from what she felt towards Martha. It’s more like what she felt towards her mother, when she’d just leave her there. So Toni had to scream. But she can’t scream at Shelby, and the only thing that feels like it, is excelling too. Surprising her. Proving her worth.   
The Avi notifies her what she should do, that she has a graphic memory and that she should try studying with colorful highlighters and schemes. Of course Toni ignores it, and still follows the old read and underline with a pencil method. She never follows her stupid pager, because much like her teachers, it doesn’t know her. Toni doesn’t even know how it works: if there’s a camera, if someone is watching her, and it’s very fucking ominous that it knows what to tell her.

They’re thirteen when Shelby snaps, one evening, in their dorm. The other three girls are out at some guys’ place, in a makeshift party they aren’t supposed to be throwing. But if it’s being allowed, Toni knows, it’s the Avi’s twisted way to push them to transgression.  
Of course Shelby insisted for them to stay home and not break any rule, even if they’re being allowed to. Such a princess, indeed.

« Why won’t you try and follow the Aviculturist’s advice for once? » 

Toni blinks, because she wasn’t expecting that. She was laying on her stomach on Shelby’s bed, while Shelby was sitting at the desk, supposedly revisioning her notes. Toni was fine just staying in silence, watching her from time to time, daydreaming about whatever.

« What do you mean? »

« I can help you draw the schemes. And we can go pick the highlighters tomorrow morning, before school. » 

Toni rolls her eyes and sighs, because she’s heard that one too many times. The pity, the willingness to adjust her. As if something was broken, but they never have the guts to tell the rest, have they.

« I know what my study method is, and it’s not that. »

« You’ve never tried it! »

« I’m not fucking ten, Shelbs! »

She hears Shelby scoff out of disbelief, before commenting: « So you’d rather fail your classes than look uncool? That’s what you’re seriously telling me? »

« It’s not about looking cool. It’s about wasting my time— »

« You literally only have that one duty. What could you possibly have to do besides studying? » 

« Why do you care if I fail or pass? That’s none of your business. »

Shelby stands up, leaves her notes on the desk and walks to her. Toni rarely sees her like that. Distressed, angry, offended and so damn serious. As if she was talking about life and death. Toni puffs a nervous laugh, sitting up, her hands rising in defence. « Chill Shelbs— »

« You’re so fucking ungrateful, Toni. You were blessed enough to be born in an Aviary, and that’s how you choose to repay those who built it? »

It takes a moment for Toni to realize that isn’t about her. It’s about Shelby and her stupid expectation, her fucked up relationship and the horrific way she talks about them as if she wasn’t worthy of anything. But Toni only gulps, lost in the realization for a moment. She’s too proud and too stubborn and she knows she’ll regret that later and yet, between the million things she could have answered, she chooses to answer: « It’s not ladylike to cuss. Didn’t your _daddy_ teach you that? »

And with that, Shelby picks her jacket up and leaves.

##  _xlii — shelby_

Shelby wasn’t expecting cuddles with her, but she still feels a little offended by the couch thing. It’s childish, purposely choosing to have back pain in the morning out of stubbornness. But she knows Toni too well not to suspect a million other reasons she hasn’t figured out yet.  
Shelby glances at her pager. She still has the Aviculturist’s notes on vibration, but she apparently missed that one. She almost never skipped an Aviculturist notice. She knew how the algorithm worked, because it was her job, and she knew how precise they were, even if Toni was still skeptical, Shelby knew that her problems came from not following its notices.

For the fourth time in her life, she ignored the notice. They had enough interaction for that evening.  
Shelby brushes her teeth again, to get the taste of the smoke out of her mouth, she puts her pajamas on and curls in the queen-sized bed. In the back of her head a little voice tells her that she should follow the notice. She should, because Toni is leaving, and Shelby won’t be given a second chance.

##  _viii — shelby_

As soon as Shelby walks out of their dorm, right after their little fight over her study method, she fishes her pager out of her pocket. Because she doesn’t know where to go, that late at night, and because she trusts the Aviculturist. Shelby feels as if she has to be Toni’s Aviculturist too, since she wouldn’t trust her own.

For the first time, Shelby ignores what her pager says. It says to go back, to make up, and to go to the party together. It has to be broken. Parties aren’t allowed. And she can’t always be the one picking the pieces, cleaning after Toni’s mess. She’s not her damn sanitation worker.

If her pager truly is broken, then she absolutely has to have it fixed as soon as possible. So that’s what she does: she shows up at the administration centre, that evening, and the maintenance person gives her a new one. They’re kind and Shelby is still shaken from the fight, and that’s when she chooses what she will do when she grows up.

##  _ix — toni_

She’s fifteen the first time Toni goes to a party. It’s better than anything she’s ever witnessed. There’s music, like, actual music and not the shit the Aviary lets them play. They must have slipped it from _the outside_. Toni goes as far as wondering if they’ll be able to let her go outside, that night.

She walks where the boys’ dorm is, to the basement her roommates kept babbling about. It has blue, green and purple lights flashing everywhere, and _good_ music. Music that isn’t about being good and compassionate and productive. Music about being bad and enjoying it. About failing and not giving a shit. And as underdeveloped that thought stays in Toni’s back of the mind, she feels it throbbing in her heart. Violent and consuming.

She starts swinging, except she’s never danced in her whole life, imitating the crowd she finds herself in. It’s fun, so much fun she wishes the night will never end. But it gets more than that. From fun it gets serious, when she spots a girl in the crowd. They lock eyes, and Toni has only ever been stared at before getting in a fight, so she turns to leave. But the girl puts a hand on her shoulder, and Toni turns around. The girl is smiling at her, with such a smile that it catches Toni’s breath. She feels as if the girl wants to eat her: as if she wants to sink her teeth in her flesh and bite. And for some twisted reason, Toni’s feet stick to the ground.

« What’s your name? » She shouts, over the music, a little frown out of concentration. She has her hair up in a high ponytail, and because of the flashing lights, Toni can’t tell the colour. What stands out is the shape of her eyes, long and almond-like.

« Toni, yours? » She manages to answer, awkwardly standing there, as the girl keeps swinging in front of her. She tells her that her name is Regan, and it’s a name Toni has never heard before. She’s never seen her before either, so she must be from another class, or another Aviary, or even the outside.

She doesn’t ask her, but instead she presses her lips in a way that she’s sure will look more like a grimace than a smile. Regan’s grasp on Toni’s shoulder travels until she’s holding on to her neck, as she keeps swinging her hips to the music. Toni’s brain feels like short-circuiting, because of the lights, the pumping music, the feeling of Regan’s cold fingers against her hot skin.  
It’s weird, it’s mixed feelings. Because she can’t dissociate Shelby’s umpteenth rejection and the fact that she’s here. The fact that she asked Shelby to come to the party with her, as it was the opening party for the third school’s start, and how she refused, because her pager told her not to come. Because the Avi is better than Toni, more important than Toni, for her.

She can’t take those thoughts out of her head — until Regan looks at her as if she wanted her. Her. Not Shelby. Not the Avi. Toni’s mind isn’t clear enough to wonder if she lets Regan dance like that against her own body precisely because of that. Because of a sense of spite, or perhaps jealousy, in Shelby’s regards. It feels wrong just as much as it feels good, and Toni suddenly feels inadequate and an adult, all at once.

And her hips start swinging as well.

##  _xliii — shelby_

When Shelby wakes up, she feels electric. She hasn’t seen Toni in years, and she hasn’t had a proper conversation with her since they were nineteen. If Shelby recalls correctly, she last saw her a few months ago, just a glance in the streets, because the Aviary is small and they happened to cross paths. Shelby still remembers how her heart leaped, at that. Shelby doesn’t need to strive to remember, because the memory of the last time they actually spent time together, two years ago, is branded in her mind with fire, and is sure will never go away.  
So it’s only natural for her to feel this excited. She has the chance to reconnect to an old— an old friend perhaps. Shelby has no idea how to label their relationship. She’s sure that Toni wouldn’t label it anything, and as she thinks that, Shelby scoffs.

She makes her bed and walks into the kitchen. Her alarm went off at half-past seven sharp, as per usual. Her new home is near her workplace, so it’s convenient. She finds the house empty, a blanket thrown all over the place on the couch, a glass in the sink. Toni leaves traces behind like a wild animal would do, and Shelby finds the similes oddly fitting.

She opens the fridge and finds the orange juice already open. It must have been her breakfast, so she leaves it untouched, reserved for her. There’s no reason for Shelby to be this nice, and yet it’s almost built in her to be considerate. Or at least, it’s always been this way, towards her.

She finds a note on the table, with that messy handwriting Toni apparently still has, as Shelby fiddles with a pan to make herself a couple of eggs for breakfast. It reads: “ _only juice. another proof your dear avi is broken_ ”

Shelby crumples the note in her hand, before smoothing it out against the table. It’s stupid, but it’s so like her it makes her resist from throwing it in the trash bin. If Toni is actually leaving, that might be the only thing Shelby gets to keep, to remember her. She looks for a pen and she writes right under: “ _don’t blame ‘the avi’ for your bad habits._ ”. She debates with herself if she should put a smiley face after, but decides against it.

« See you later! » She shouts to the bird, before leaving.

##  _x — shelby_

Toni is weird, after that party, Shelby notices straight away. She never came back that night, as Shelby waited up for her, not even bothering to warn her she’d sleep over. But that’s not what bothers Shelby.  
After the party, Toni hardly ever speaks to her in class. Shelby even goes as far as making a paper airplane, but it just evokes a weird look from Toni.

It’s a week after when Shelby confronts her, in the changing room behind the gym.

« So what, Toni, you just _chose_ we’re no longer friends? »

Toni is tying up her shoes, as they’ve just showered, ready to leave. She glances at her from her bent position, before focusing back on the task at hand. « What are you talking about? »

« It’s days you’re being weird. »

« I’m not being anything. »

« Bullshit. »

That finally catches Toni’s attention, and Shelby hates how she always has to get one step out of her comfort zone to be noticed by her. Shelby hates even more how she _wants_ to be noticed. With a burning passion, but she won’t follow that path. She’s had confused thoughts lately, and Toni’s avoidance hasn’t helped.

« You pray with that mouth? »

Shelby rolls her eyes, because of course she’s deflecting. So, as soon as Toni stands up, Shelby grabs her by the side of her shoulders. They’re approximately the same eight, but Toni has her shoes on, so she’s towering on her by a few inches — and Shelby wishes she had shoes on too.

« Will you cut it? »

Toni looks everywhere but in her eyes, until she does. She does and Shelby feels like she punched her in the stomach, for some reason. She’s frowning, like she always is, but Shelby can tell there’s something else. She looks torn, and her gaze drops for a second, before turning back up. And it gives Shelby a funny feeling, as those confusing thoughts come back in full force.

« I’ve made out with a girl, at the party. » It’s quick, and it’s out there. It feels like a hot fuming ball she doesn’t know how to handle, so Shelby drops it.

She takes a step back and lets it go. « What? »

Toni scoffs, licks her lips and flexes her jaw. It’s as if she has too many things to say, and Shelby can’t wait to hear them, but eventually Toni settles for: « Don’t look _too_ disgusted, Shelbs. It doesn’t suit you. »

And with that, Toni walks away.  
Those confusing thoughts morph into a new and scary shape, right then.

##  _xliv — toni_

Toni doesn’t like her job. She doesn’t despise it. She got used to it, and she feels like dying of boredom. But it’s not _bad_ , she knows she could have had it worse. And she knows she’s going to leave it soon enough.

« You okay? » Fatin asks her, driving the truck. They’re on dumpster duty today, and Toni is content with staring outside of the window in between steps.

« Sure. » She glances at her, before looking back outside, « You? »

She chuckles to herself, and starts telling her everything about who she got assigned to.

« If I didn’t know better, I’d think the Avi is broken. » She says, and it’s weird how slightly proud Toni feels upon hearing someone else use her abbreviations. After all they’ve spent five years working side by side, so it’s only natural. Toni briefly wonders what she picked up from her, and perhaps it’s a bit of patience, being her greatest virtue.

« It must be, for suggesting your parents your name. » She shoots as she always does, and Fatin looks as fed up as always. Toni opens her mouth, laughing to herself, as she precedes her: « If I ever change it, know it’s because of you. »

« Please change it to Fartin. »

She laughs at that, despite herself, and Toni turns her head once again outside of the window, an easy smile on her lips. « What was her name, once again? »

« Leah. Rilke. And let me tell you, she seemed as surprised as me seeing I was a girl- »

##  _xi — toni_

Toni knows something changed at the party. Something never sat right with her, and perhaps that party had been like an epiphany for her. She meets Regan at yet another party, as the months blur together, and now they’re sixteen. They meet again, and they agree to hang out sometimes. There’s no point in dating in the Aviary, because everybody knows that one gets assigned to a person, when they turn twenty-five. Still, it’s fun to mess around like she and Regan are. It’s fun and casual: everything that has never been with Shelby. Toni doesn’t feel so strongly, she doesn’t run hot all the time around Regan as she does with her. And perhaps it’s good for her. For her anger issues, to calm down a little.

Toni distinctively saw how Shelby shuddered, every time she brought Regan up. Toni had no idea how she could still be religious in the Aviary. It was as if serving two gods: God and the Aviculturist. To Toni, neither felt real. But Toni knew Shelby’s disgust had to come from somewhere, so she attributed it to religion. There was no way Shelby was naturally repulsed by _that_. Not a person as nice as she was. That, or Toni truly didn’t know her at all.

Things changed, from that moment. Toni registered how Shelby would act with gloved hands around her. Afraid to say the wrong thing, or perhaps afraid of her. As if she could ever do anything to her.

They’re sixteen, when Toni thinks she’s fallen in love. She knows she’s young, but they’ve been hanging out for almost a year now. Regan feels like a replacement to Shelby’s company sometimes, but there’s an abyss between them. What Regan lacks in the complicity she built with Shelby, she makes up with her touches. And it’s enough for Toni, because they’re young, barely out of childhood, and she already feels so lonely. Already, or perhaps she’s realizing only now. When her mother used to leave her in front of the tv, alone, she wished she had a Regan back then.

« Is this okay? » Toni asks, just like Shelby used to ask her when she used to comb her hair. Run her fingers through them, even massaging her skull when she felt like it.  
But something very different is happening now, as Regan’s roommates are in the mess hall, and they’re skipping dinner.

Regan just moans in response, and Toni feels just like she did at that party, a year ago. Regan taught her experience neither of them had, exploring, with baby steps. And as Toni has both of her hands under Regan’s shirt and her mouth on her neck, she feels like an adult. Doing stuff adults do when they’re in love. So Toni has to be in love, right?

##  _xii — toni_

As Toni dates Regan, Shelby is seeing this guy. His name is Andrew, and Toni knows what class he’s in, what his favourite sport is, and even what’s his dorm room number. Toni knows all these things because Shelby won’t shut up about it.

It’s almost spring, as the end of their eleventh year there approaches. It’s weird, thinking about it. Eleven years spent together, facing stuff together, overcoming things together, and it only took Shelby one week of dating this guy to go nuts about him. Toni isn’t jealous, of course not, he’s as ugly as stupid as Shelby makes him sound. Except he isn’t. They hung out once, for five minutes, as he came to pick Shelby up by their dorm room. That was something Regan never did, but perhaps she expected Toni to. So from that one time on, Toni starts picking her up too.

Toni tries hard not to be difficult about the situation. She doesn’t want things to go south just like it happened so many times already. And she knows it’s been a year, but she’s already on thin ice with Shelby, because of her— well, herself. Her _preferences_ , as Shelby once put it.

The thing Toni hates the most about it, is that Andrew is actually kind of pretty. He has short curly hair, the exact same colour as Shelby’s, and next to each other they look like siblings. He’s polite, he sounds smart, and one could tell he studied hard. He and Shelby talk about all the nerdy stuff they’re both into, like technology and all those other stupid things Toni can’t understand. It makes her feel stupid talking to him, and Toni hates it. He’s tall, so freaking tall, that even when Toni feels like punching him out of nowhere, she keeps her hands to herself. Judging by his temper, she’s sure he never got in a fight. And she doesn’t want to screw things up with Shelby. She doesn’t want her to look at her as if she was a lost cause, as she often did.  
And the worst thing of them all, is how Toni _knows_ he treats her right. He treats her better than Toni has ever done, because Toni has so many fucking issues she doesn’t even know where to begin, while he’s just as perfect as Shelby describes him to be.

So when Shelby asks her if she and Regan want to go on a double date, Toni truly has no idea how to answer. Because if she asked her, it means that she sees Regan and her as a proper couple, whatever that means. But Toni doesn’t really feel like spending more time than necessary with Andrew and Shelby acting like lovebirds more than strictly necessary.

She still says yes.

##  _xlv — shelby_

Shelby is sharp on time, as usual. She smiles, she says hi to her coworkers, as she sits down at her desk. She has to fix some bugs for the morning and file some paperwork, and after that she’s pretty much free to monitor a random person’s pager as a control sample. Her desk is by the large window-wall, so that she can gaze outside every now and then, see how the Aviary is busy in the mornings. They’re the first generation for that Aviary, so everyone in there is the same age. Shelby wonders how it will look like when there will be children in it. She can’t help but wonder why they chose exactly twenty-five years as a settle-down age and suddenly, a memory flashes in her mind.

##  _xiii — shelby_

Shelby didn’t expect Toni to accept. She knows she doesn’t really like Andrew, as nice as he is to her, so it puts a smile on her face thinking that they’ll have all dinner together tonight. They’re simply sitting at the same table in the mess hall, since actual restaurants are still being built in the Aviary for when they’ll be promoted to a second-generation Aviary. Shelby knows she wants the higher preparation, so she’ll have to study for another five years. It’s funny, how it’s all set on the number five, for some reason.

When Toni and Regan join them, five minutes — and again, how coincidental — late, Shelby voices her consideration: « Have you guys noticed how everything has the number five around here? »

« That’s right! » Is Andrew smiley agreement, and he’s always so cheerful that Shelby feels like resting, when talking to him.

Still, she looks at Toni, waiting for whatever her answer will be. If Andrew is cheerful, Toni is dismissive.

« As if it mattered. »

But before Shelby can say anything, Regan beats her to it: « Aren’t you the always suspicious one? You should file the info for your investigation on the Avi, _detective_. »

It’s playful, and it’s dripping with inner jokes, that Shelby almost misses the way Toni smiles at her. But Shelby doesn’t, and she would rather have, but she casts out the thought. Confusing thoughts, ever so present, around her.

« The Avi? » Andrew asks, and he sounds genuinely interested.

« The Aviculturist. » Regan fills the blank for him, as she grabs the glass.

« Uhm, a prayer first, perhaps. » Shelby urges, and she has no idea why. She never did it before, not in Toni’s presence, knowing that she’d start eating anyways. But Regan is nothing like her, as she puts the glass down and patiently waits. And Regan has a good influence on Toni apparently, because she does the same. So Shelby rushes the prayer, for some reason ashamed of herself, and _angry_.

It’s childish, but by the end of the night, Shelby wishes she never invited them.

##  _xlvi — toni_

It’s late at night when Toni comes home. She hangs her jacket and leaves her shoes by the door. She has a change of clothes at work — an obnoxious dark blue jumpsuit, with “sanitation worker - aviary 715” written in big white letters on the back — so her actual clothes won’t stink, but it still feels liberating, stripping down.

Toni smiles at that. “Stripping down”. She’s tempted to take a trip down memory lane, and recall that particular strip-tease she tried, and failed, to pull off in front of Regan, when they were seventeen. So embarrassing. But Regan did it first, and she was a natural, because she made it look so easy. Toni found out it was everything but easy, so she filed the memory away.

It’s half-past eight in the evening, and she knows Shelby must be home already. She works from eight to six with a two hours pause in the middle she can have whenever. It must be pretty fucking nice, but after all, Toni hasn’t studied as much to have such privilege. She’s stuck with her six to eight schedule with one hour break. Toni doesn’t hate her job though. And she’s kind of fond of her work partner, but no one will catch her admit it while she’s still alive.

She finds a note on the table. Her own note, overwritten. “ _don’t blame ‘the avi’ for your bad habits._ ” Toni keeps the piece of paper between her thumb and her first two fingers, closer than necessary. As if she’s feeling vertigo. She holds the back of the chair with the other hand, and just stares at the pretty and tidy calligraphy. So Shelby-esque. She smiles, despite herself.

There’s something else on the table, she notices as she folds the piece of paper and shoves it in the pocket of her jeans. She grabs the little box, its yellow surface like a punch in her eye. She doesn’t need a note to know why Shelby left it. 

« Liquorice root sticks. It’s for the- »

« For the smoking, right. » Toni finishes for her. She turns around, and Shelby is holding her own arms, leaning on the doorframe. It’s oddly domestic, as if she was waiting for her, and Toni shakes the feeling off her shoulders.

She looks at the liquorice root sticks box in her hand, and then back at Shelby, before asking: « Have you eaten anything yet? »

Shelby shakes her head, and Toni turns around to bustle about what she finds in the kitchen. Shelby wasn’t waiting for her. She probably wasn’t hungry. So Toni asks, bent over the fridge: « Are you hungry? »

Shelby hums, and Toni finds it harder to believe that she wasn’t waiting for her.


	3. like watching the opera, or a thunderstorm

##  _ xlvii — shelby _

There’s no particular reason why Shelby believes in God. There’s no eye-opening moment, no epiphany. She just does, as she always did, as spirituality is something that her family felt strongly about. And because she missed them like crazy, every day since she was five years old, praying felt like talking to them. So Shelby believes in God in the way one would love their family: with a personal burning passion, as if she actually  _ met  _ God.

Toni has challenged her beliefs, multiple times. It doesn’t shock Shelby that Toni tries getting under her skin tonight as well, as if trying to make up for the lost time.

« I’m assuming you won’t dress it. » 

She fixed a quick salad for the both of them, as Shelby set the table, and they’re now sitting across one another. Toni still has that way of inclining her whole torso, instead of bringing the fork to her mouth, just like toddlers or ogres do.

What Toni is hinting at is Leviticus 3,17, and Shelby had buttered her toasts yesterday morning, so she might as well have oil on her salad. She grabs the bottle and pours a round of it, not bothering to address the matter.

« Why are you doing this? » Shelby asks her, bringing the fork to her mouth.

She briefly looks at Shelby, and puffs a laugh to herself. « Isn’t it ironic, how the Avi assigned you to me? »

Shelby has only half abandoned the idea that it’s all a big joke, or perhaps a mistake she has yet to resolve. If it was how it was supposed to be then yes, it’d be ironic, all things considered.

Toni presses: « Perhaps the Avi is an atheist. You know, I talked to my colleague today, and they too were assigned to someone of their own gender. Perhaps this is all a big research on gay people. Can you imagine? »

The way that is the first moment Toni is being that talkative pushes Shelby to stay on the subject, as much as she’d like not to. Toni sounds as if she was on the verge of insanity. As if those were her last lucid words, ruminated for days now, ready to overflood.

Shelby puts her fork down, both of their bowls empty, as she stands up to wash them.

« Let me. » Toni tells her, grabbing the bowls before she can.

It’s a second, and Shelby doesn’t even think before retorting: « As you’ve washed your things until now? »

« It’s literally been a day and a half. »

Perhaps both of them are exhausted, losing their sanity. Shelby doesn’t feel like fighting tonight. She never feels like fighting with Toni. She feels like bantering, like playfully prodding each other. Like their back and forths, their exchange of power. What they’re best at, and still do the least. So she stands next to her, washing what she has lathered already.

When they’re finished, Toni turns towards her for a moment, before taking a step toward the living room.

« You can sleep on the bed too, you know. There’s plenty of space. »

Shelby doesn’t know why she feels the need to point that out, because if Toni wants to be that stubborn, she can keep her back pain. But she still does, hopeful as always.

##  _ xiv — shelby _

Shelby is in Andrew’s dorm, one evening. She noticed Toni and Regan skipping dinner sometimes, and she connected the dots. She asked Andrew if it was cool with him, and he said it was, so now they were in his dorm room. Laying on his bed, to be more precise.

Shelby knows he won’t go too far, as he’s so respectful that he keeps checking up on her. If this is fine, if that is okay. Shelby keeps nodding, urgent of something she is unsure of. She likes him. She’s not  _ in love _ with him, as she doesn’t even know what that means. But he’s a nice guy, the nicest guy she’s ever met, and he’s good-looking. She’s sure her father will approve of him. If she spends enough time with him, the Aviculturist’s algorithm will assign them to be lifetime partners, perhaps. There’s not much else she can wish for, right?   
Right as she asks herself that, with Andrew’s clumsy mouth on her neck, burying her under tons of attention, someone else’s lips cross her mind.  _ Fuck _ . Shelby doesn’t cuss, not even in her own mind, except for when it’s needed. And as Toni inexplicably pops up in her mind in a moment like that, she feels angry all of a sudden. Hot and bothered, just as she ruins yet another good thing for her. Shelby often asked herself when things went south between them, but perhaps they always did. From that very first time something so broken about their dynamic never really got fixed. But perhaps that was precisely why Shelby still gravitated towards her, and why she was thinking about her while it was Andrew who was on top of her.

« Is this not okay? » He asks once more, dragging her out of her own mind.

« Yeah, uh, keep going. » But it feels a bit fake in her own ears. Perhaps she needs more. But she doesn’t want to give him a bad impression either. Without intending to she sighs, and he gets up.

« It’s okay, we can do it again some other time, if you want. »

Shelby runs a hand through her hair. He is too good for her, and perhaps  _ that  _ is precisely why she keeps gravitating towards Toni.

##  _ xv — toni _

Toni knew how much time they had. She knew it, because she didn’t want to be caught with her hands in the jar, figuratively speaking. With her hands  _ somewhere _ , at least.

And yet here she is, being startled by the sound of the door opening. She turns around as fast as she can, pulling her hoodie back on in the fastest way possible, as Regan does the same with her shirt.

Shelby looks disheveled, as if  _ she  _ was the one that was walked on. Her eyes are wide of surprise, and Toni feels stupid asking: « Why aren’t you at dinner? »

Shelby shuts the door behind her, and it’s over as quickly as it started. Toni runs after her, not even knowing  _ why _ , not even sparing a glance at the girl she left behind. She has nothing to explain. They were on her own bed, and they had every right to skip dinner if they wanted to. Yet, Toni runs after her, as a low feeling mounts from the depths of her stomach. It’s unsettling, and the chilly air of the evening distracts her, as she catches up with Shelby in the courtyard of the dorm.

Toni grabs her by the wrist, as Shelby shakes the grip off. « Don’t you have  _ somewhere  _ to be? » Shelby asks her, and it feels  _ wrong _ . As if it was dripping with judgment.

Toni gulps, nonetheless. Stabbed right through. « You know, we weren’t— » Toni starts, not even knowing why she’s justifying herself.

« Except you were. I’m sure you already have. But it’s fine, I mean. It’s been what, a year now? I can’t tell you what to do. If the Aviculturist told you to— »

Toni feels like ripping her eyes out because, seriously? Is she really bringing the Avi up right now? « You’re unbelievable. What if the fucking Aviculturist told me to punch you, huh? What then? »

« What are you talking about? It wouldn’t. »

« What if it did though? You don’t know that. Will you stop being so fucking naive and think with your own goddamn mind for once? »

Toni sees Shelby flinch a little, but it’s a matter of instants, because she looks angry, all of a sudden. Angrier than before. No longer hurt, but downright enraged. It’s new, and sadistically enough, it elicits a certain kind of pleasure in Toni.

« I did too, you know. With Andrew. »

Toni blinks, and she has no idea why Shelby is telling her that. Toni figured they didn’t, but she truly didn’t want to find out. She knows Shelby is loyal to her principles, so perhaps she truly was planning on staying a virgin until she got assigned to someone. Guess she was wrong.

« Congratulations. Do you want a fucking applause? » 

It’s confusing, so damn confusing, and everything feels like spinning around Toni, but Shelby turns towards her, as serious as she ever saw her. « Did the Aviculturist tell you to? »

Toni is fed up with that. « Why is it so important? »

« Just tell me. »

« I don’t know. »

« Then check it. »

So Toni does, and even if she never follows what her pager says, she still always looks at it, out of curiosity. Many things make no sense to her, and she wonders if the tech guy assigned to her, if that’s even how it works, knows how she could ruin her relationships by following his shitty advice. Toni doesn’t even know what Shelby wants her to look at, because they’ve been omitting so many subjects that she’s getting lost in the matter.

Toni’s pager reads the indication of the moment, and she has no clue how to see the chronology, if there even is one. There’s no way Toni is going to tell her what her pager is saying right now, so she shoves it right back in her pocket.

« It says to mind your fucking business Shelbs, that’s what it says. » 

But Shelby launches herself towards her, to grab the thing. Toni shakes her off, trying to put some distance, before screaming at her: « What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re so fixated! »

Shelby takes a step back, and looks so  _ lost _ , in a way Toni has never seen her. She takes another step back, turns around and leaves.

Everything inside of Toni screams to run after her, to fix it, to apologize. Her pager buzzes in her pocket, and she doesn’t need to look at it to know that it’s saying the same thing. Lately, everything it says is about Shelby. “Lately”. It always has.

Toni just spends the night outside instead, walking around the Aviary, feeling as trapped as ever.

##  _ xlviii — toni _

Toni’s pager buzzes in her pocket, as she bends on the couch to open a space for herself through the sheets.

« It says to go in the bed, doesn’t it? » Is Shelby’s question. She’s just one step in the living room, as if that was now Toni’s property.

Toni glances at the pager just in case, and it says more than that. She presses her lips together, uncertain whether to just downright show it to Shelby, to convince her the thing is just broken, or to scream out of frustration.

But since there’s nothing keeping her from moving somewhere more comfortable, she grabs her pillow and walks to the bedroom, Shelby following her one step behind, as if watching a stray animal.

« What… what did it say, exactly? » Shelby asks, torturing her hangnails. Toni never understood her obsession with those things. Over the religion, the pager, the being perfect at everything. Having someone to tell her what to do, to trap her, to rule her. It’s so stupid, and she can’t just ignore it.

« Why are you so fixated anyways? » She asks, as she walks to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Shelby does the same, and the bathroom suddenly feels claustrophobic with the two of them in it. They look at each other through the mirror, its light blue artificial lights illuminating their tired faces.

« I’m not fixated. It’s you who should pay more attention to it. »

Toni rolls her eyes, because she’s heard the lecture a million times before. She should feel lucky that she was born there and all that.

« You should feel lucky. Many people used to walk in life lost, without a purpose, without directions. Those who live in the wilderness still do, you know. » Nothing ever stops Shelby to repeat the same things apparently, and Toni patiently waits for her to finish to counterargument with the same thing:

« And you think some guy behind a computer can give them that? If he does, it’s just an illusion. Something a religion can already provide. »

Both of them rinse, brush again and gargle. It’s funny, Toni considers, how their respective timbres are reflected in that too. Shelby’s sound as sweet as her voice does, but Toni is supposed to be angry at her, for something she already forgot.

« It’s not a guy behind a computer, I told you a million times. It’s a perfectly crafted algorithm that interprets the events and the signals in your brain to give you the best outcome possible, long-term wise. »

« Do you know it actually told me to punch someone once, right? »

Shelby ignores her, as she addresses a previous point: « Also, religion doesn’t provide  _ illusion _ . It provides moral principles, something you could use. »

Toni laughs at that, because it came out strangely funny for Shelby. She can’t remember the last time she made her laugh, and it disorients her.

Toni walks back into the bedroom, as she strips down her clothes to put on an old shirt and a pair of sweatpants that she uses as pajamas. She catches Shelby staring. Don’t go there, she tells herself. It’s not worth it. You’re not that lonely — and you can’t afford it.

It feels too much like too many other times, and Toni doesn’t want to find pleasure in feeling wanted by Shelby. Everyone but her. Because hope is a dangerous thing, for someone like her.

##  _ xvi — toni _

They’re five, the first time they sleep in the same bed. It’s their first night, and Shelby and Toni get assigned to the same dorm, much like what will keep on happening after that. The dorms look all the same: with wooden floors, wooden walls, tiny windows covered in white curtains. Five bunk beds, a wardrobe and a single desk. They’re tiny, and they don’t get bigger, as they get older.

That first time Toni is excited, because she’s never slept everywhere but at home. She’s excited but she hears sniffles from the bed below hers. She appears from the edge of her mattress and she sees Shelby, curled in a ball. She doesn’t want to be here, Toni can tell. So she jumps down and lays down with her. Shelby cracks an eye open, looks at her, and scoots closer. That’s the first time they sleep in the same bed. It happens the night after, and the one after that, and the one after that one too. Until they lose count.   
Shelby misses her family, she tells her one night. Toni can’t comprehend it, because she’d rather stay here with her. Still Toni holds her and rubs her back, and that’s the best she can offer. It seems to be enough, because Shelby climbs in Toni’s bed every night after that.   
Toni loves it, because Shelby is always so patient with her, and that’s the first time she feels like she can help her too, in a way.

##  _ xvii — shelby _

When Shelby forgets to climb up in Toni’s bed, she’s the one climbing down. When Shelby goes to bed later, years later, trying to finish studying, she finds Toni already asleep on her own.

Shelby doesn’t know  _ when  _ it shifts, but it does. Shelby doesn’t know the exact date, but they’re still in the “second school” when it happens.   
Something shifts, and it’s no longer familiar. It’s no longer as welcome, but it’s not unwelcomed either. Shelby has a harder time falling asleep next to Toni, making a one-eighty from how it used to be. She has a harder time falling asleep, and she can’t help but have her eyes glued to her. Because Toni is always tired, for some reason, and she falls asleep everywhere, in every position, with every temperature. But Shelby stays still nonetheless, even if she’s sure Toni won’t wake up that easily. She stays still, and she closes her eyes. They’re in their early fourteens, and they’ve been in that situation plenty of times before, in the past nine years.   
Yet, something shifts. And Shelby can no longer ignore the feeling of Toni’s body pressed against her side. She has no idea why, but it makes her uneasy, it makes her restless and unsettled. It makes her heart race, and it makes her feel in a very similar way to how she feels right before a test. Except she can’t wait for the test to be over, while laying in bed, wide awake, with Toni curled against her, she wishes for morning to never come.

After the party Toni stops showing up in her bed, and Shelby feels like breathing again. Relieved. And as if she lost something.

##  _ xlix — shelby _

It’s oddly familiar, the way Toni drops dead on the bed, how she casually puts one arm behind her nape and the other one playing with some brain-teasers. It’s familiar, and Shelby feels dragged to stand next to her, to curl against her, to annoy her explaining all the different ways she can solve it.

« You won’t have those in the wilderness, you know that, right? » She chooses to say instead, and it’s the first time the topic is addressed. It’s been their third flat-mate, the elephant in the room, something Shelby doesn’t even know if it’s going to happen. But she phrased it that way, as if Toni made her mind already.   
And perhaps she did. Perhaps she did, and perhaps Shelby was wasting her time playing her game, keeping her distance.

Toni’s eyes shift to her, and there’s always something so wild about them that Shelby feels instantly stripped down of everything. As if she bore holes in her, with her sole gaze. So Shelby shifts on the spot, as her breath feels a little heavier. She feels like she did when she was little, perhaps three or four, and did something she wasn’t supposed to, waiting for her punishment. But it’s Toni, and it’s addicting, for some twisted reason.

« You want me gone that much? » Is her answer, and Shelby doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Is she being ironic? There’s no way she’s planning to stay, so she must be. Shelby hates her for never giving her a straight answer.

So Shelby asks again, as she strips down her own clothes, fetching her pajamas: « Are you going to leave? »

« Would you like me to? » Is Toni’s question, after a moment of pondering. And what a question, for Shelby. Does she? No, of course not. As—  _ peculiar  _ their situation as assigned life partners is, right now, Shelby wouldn’t trade her freedom for losing her best friend. Hell, she said it. Best friend. She could at least own it, right? So she answers, as honest as ever:

« No. »

It’s simple, because they need simple, swimming amongst all that complications. But Toni isn’t used to simple, and every time Shelby speaks in that way, she always looks so  _ lost _ . As lost as she expects her to be more often, not following any kind of direction. Not one, but her pure instincts. Shelby never knew how unnerving she found it, and how admirable — how she was envious of her courage, and how mesmerized.

Toni looks indeed lost, disoriented, as the bed shifts under Shelby’s weight, and she’s kneeling right before her. Toni puts the game on the nightstand, and with that simple gesture, Shelby knows she has her full attention.

So she asks again: « Are you going to leave? » And she knows Toni heard it. She heard the end of the sentence, the unspoken “me”.  _ Are you going to leave me? _ And there’s another bit to it, a little after that, even more feeble, in Shelby’s own mind. She doesn’t know if it sounds more like: “Are you going to leave me  _ again _ ?” or “Are you going to leave me  _ for good _ ?”

But she sure knows what follows.  _ Please, at least, take me with you. _

##  _ xviii — toni _

They’re eighteen, the first time it happens. They’re eighteen and in two years Toni will start working, and Shelby will start her specialization. There’s something about being eighteen. Perhaps it’s the Aviary turning to life, preparing to become a second-generation one, buzzing with workers from other Aviaries. Perhaps it’s the early talk of what to do with their future: for those of who have chosen to follow the lower grade of each faculty, from technology to entertainment, and for those who are still unsure of which branch to take.   
It feels too early for Toni, because there’s still one year and a half left, which sounds like plenty of time to make a single decision. But perhaps it’s because she has already chosen, never really into studying at all, that she doesn’t quite grasp the life-turning importance of the matter.

What Toni grasps is Shelby’s buzzing excitement over anything. Her friends talk about it, she’s following seminars about it, she’s listening to seminars about it, and it’s very intriguing to witness, for Toni. She knows Shelby chose to get in maintenance when she was thirteen. There are no secrets between them, or so they tell each other, so Toni knows she’s partially the reason for that too.   
Still, despite having decided yet, she looks as if she could explode with excitement. As if it was all new, and she couldn’t wait to start again.   
It’s good, and Toni doesn’t feel the bittersweet taste of comparison, for once. Perhaps because she understands how much Shelby will have to sweat for her ambition. But it’s good, ambition. It’s something Toni doesn’t think she possesses, so she’s willing to just look at her, and relentlessly  _ admire  _ her, without resentment, for once.   
She admires Shelby very fucking much, now that she thinks about it.

They’re in their dorm, and they just came from school. It’s still a few hours before dinner, and Shelby is already at the desk, not even considering taking a break. Their other three roommates stopped at the park, because it’s May and it’s still sunny outside.

Toni is laying on her stomach on Shelby’s bed, her distinctive smell filling her nostrils, screaming of home and familiarity. They always had each other, now that Toni is thinking about it. And perhaps it’s the general excitement, perhaps it’s something in the air, but she’s feeling so emotional, all of a sudden, just looking at her. Looking at how she pushes her hair back, how she pursues her lips in concentration, how the tip of her pen will get caught between her teeth, only for her to notice minutes later and push it out as if it was a bad thing.

It feels Toni with something, with a certain kind of energy that gets her to stand up. Regan is no longer in the picture, as they slowly drifted apart. Regan told her she was holding back, and Regan put  _ those thoughts _ in her head. The same thoughts her pager suggested. And Regan told her it wasn’t jealousy, but she couldn’t be in a relationship with her and Shelby, and Toni still isn’t sure what that means.   
So Regan no longer is in the picture, but Andrew is still very much in it. And Toni doesn’t know if it’s because Shelby feels lonely, or if she feels something for him. Because as perfect as he first appeared, Shelby’s interest seemed to extinguish, and Toni would have thought that perfection calls for boredom, if she didn’t think Shelby was perfect already.

So Toni shouldn’t, because Andrew still is in the picture, but the polaroid of the two of them hanging on the wall is staring at her as if challenging her. And Toni has never ever backed down from a challenge.

So not only she stands up, but she also takes a few steps towards her. Shelby is very absorbed in her own work and won’t look at her, not until Toni reaches her, and puts a hand beside her own, on the desk. That’s when Shelby’s eyes follow Toni’s hand, then her arm, and then she looks up. She frowns a bit, parts her lip to ask something, and Toni’s gaze zeroes in them.

« Toni? » Shelby asks again, and Toni blinks, and doesn’t even realize she’s leaning in.

She doesn’t know how to word it, but somehow a soft: « Can I? » Comes out of her mouth.

Shelby’s frown turns into a look of realization, a look that lingers for a bit too much, as if it was something difficult to comprehend. But Shelby’s eyelids flutter, going up, then down, then up again, until they shut down.   
And then is when it happens.   
Just Shelby’s hand on Toni’s neck, the other one holding the pen, a pinkie linked with Toni’s own, from the hand that’s holding her up against the desk, the other hand grabbing the back of Shelby’s chair. It’s unexplained, but Shelby accepts it, and Toni realizes something. It’s not the excitement of the season, or something different in the same air they’ve breathed for the past thirteen years. It’s Shelby, and it’s Toni, following a bit of advice for once. So perhaps the Avi truly is right, because as Toni obeys it, she feels the best she’s ever felt. Better than that one time she punched the kid — that the Avi told her not to, but there’s no chronology, so she’ll keep using that excuse —, better than that one time Shelby and she ate so many candies they threw up, better than that one time she danced with Regan for the first time, better than the first time she’s been touched.

So Toni moves her lips against Shelby’s, and Shelby opens hers, a tongue against Toni’s upper one, in a way a bit too experienced for Toni not to picture Andrew, somewhere, receiving the same attention. And as good as it feels, it’s still Shelby, so Toni has to break the kiss and ask her if that is okay, and what about Andrew.

And that’s how it ends.

##  _ xix — shelby _

The first kiss she and Toni shared was unexpected on her part, but the second surely wasn’t.

Three days pass by, and everything feels so tense. They sleep in different beds, they walk a few feet apart, they don’t talk much during classes. It feels like it always does after their big fights, except there’s something else now. There’s no anger, no resentment, but just pure tension.

For the second time in her life, Shelby ignores her pager. Because it says to break up with Andrew, and to  _ talk  _ to Toni. But Andrew is safe, Andrew is stable, Andrew is everything Toni isn’t. Andrew won’t leave her, Andrew will treat her right, Andrew is the best guy a girl can ask for. She should feel lucky, and she should preserve their relationship in every way Shelby can.

So she stays with him. She does, and Shelby is sure that she can have them both. Toni as her friend, and Andrew as her lover. It doesn’t cross her mind that they can be switched, because there’s a hierarchy, in her mind, and the highest place is reserved for who will keep her the safest. Who will hurt her the least, who she won’t suffer for.

So, to save Toni’s friendship too, she does talk to her. Three days from their kiss — after which hers and Andrew felt so different, and Shelby can’t even pinpoint if they’re better now or worse, just so exaggeratedly different — Shelby holds on to Toni’s sleeve, just as she’s leaving for dinner. She plans it to be a quick conversation, an honest talk to sort out what happened.

« Toni. Can we talk? »

Toni turns and nods, and Shelby feels how she gave her space, in those three days. How she’s been extra soft towards her, how she’s been careful. Respecting, even. Challenging every comparison Shelby has ever done between her and what is supposed to be her boyfriend.

Shelby doesn’t really know where to start, as Toni closes the door behind her, and they’re standing in the middle of the dorm, just the two of them. So she swings a little on her feet, hands clasped behind her back, looking everywhere but in Toni’s eyes.

« So, about— you know… » She starts tentatively, and she’s glad when Toni puffs a laugh and asks, with a raised brow: « The kiss? »

Shelby nods, but Toni doesn’t add a thing for some time. Then, sensing Shelby won’t say a thing, Toni explains: « Listen, Shelbs, if I went too far I apologize— »

And Shelby has played that imaginary conversation millions of times in her head, in those past three days. Now she’s supposed to tell her that she doesn’t need to, that she should have stopped, and they should try and understand why Toni felt the urge to kiss her in the first place. But Shelby feels like a hypocrite, because she didn’t stop her sooner, and she, too, felt the urge to kiss her back.

So Shelby is on the tip of her toes, as Toni has already her shoes on, her hands on Toni’s shoulders, and her lips crashing against hers.   
And that’s how the second one happens.

##  _ l — toni _

What does she mean, is she going to leave her. Toni is sure she said plenty of times how much she hated that place. All those brainwashed people, devoid of their ability to make a decision for themselves because of the stupid pager and the AI and all that. Of course she wants to leave, because she’s afraid she’ll lose herself like all those people already did. Except she’s twenty-five now, and she hasn’t lost herself yet. And perhaps she doesn’t have the ability to make her own decision, because the pager has been choosing for her as well, telling her what to not do.

But there’s something else Shelby is asking, and Toni senses it. They’ve had this conversation already. They’ve had it millions of times, in different shapes and forms. Why won’t you buy the highlighters, and why are you so fixated. Why won’t you obey, and why will you. It’s always the same narrative, told again and again and again, and yet they’re still not sick of it, still so surprised by the other’s way of living.

And Toni thought it could not matter, if they didn’t let it matter, once. She thought it and she can’t think it already, because how did that end for them? But, again, if she truly is leaving in four days — “ _ if _ ”, Toni hates how Shelby can make her doubt something she was so sure of for her whole life with just a single question — then all of this doesn’t really matter. She can at least give Shelby a proper goodbye, at this point.

That’s why she gets on her knees too, so that now they’re on the same eye level. Shelby pursues her lips, as if on the verge of crying, and Toni puffs a laugh to lighten up the mood. Because they both know how symbolic that position is.

##  _ xx — toni _

They kiss again, right after that second one. They kiss right after it, and Shelby takes a step further, until Toni feels the door behind her back, and she feels pressed against it, in a way that makes her feel Shelby’s urgency. She doesn’t understand it, not right away, because she knew why she kissed Shelby that first time. Toni has never known her boundaries, never known what to call her relationship with Shelby. After Regan came in the picture, Toni thought that it was the sex what defined romance and friendship. But now they are crossing that arbitrary line, facing something deeper, something that can’t be so easily dismissed with a label like that.

It’s scary, because Shelby is Toni’s only friend. She doesn’t want to mess it up, and truly, Shelby is the only person she really cares about. Their relationship isn’t worth a bit of making out, as much as Toni found herself daydreaming about that in the past few days — but she told herself that she did solely because she doesn’t have clear boundaries, and that is perhaps her way of sorting her affection out.

That’s why she breaks apart, panting, trying to catch up with everything. With Shelby’s cinnamon and vanilla scent, with the look in her eyes, with the way her lips glisten with something that has to be Toni’s. She feels a shiver run through her body, shaking her, as she asks: « What are you doing? »

Shelby huffs a smile, frowns, « What do you think? »

She leans in, and Toni closes her eyes instinctively, but still points out: « What changed? »

##  _ xxi — shelby _

Toni asks her something that she asked herself already, in those past three days. Because Shelby has played the conversation they were supposed to be having a million times, and she was supposed to tell her that she didn’t need to apologize, that she should have stopped, and they should have tried to understand why Toni felt the urge to kiss her in the first place.

But Shelby is a hypocrite, and now apparently a cheater too, and still, she doesn’t feel half guilty. She just feels like she’s been robbed, the moment Toni took a step back.   
So, what changed?

« Great question. » She laughs out, looking at her feet. Is that rejection? Perhaps not, perhaps is a genuine attempt at understanding.

She doesn’t expect Toni’s hand cupping her cheek, and she expects even less the steadiness she finds in her gaze, when she looks up, for Shelby has always been the steady one of the two.

« You don’t have to have all the answers right now. Just, know that I’m not just Andrew, or someone you met at a party. »

Shelby wishes she didn’t understand straight away what Toni meant by “ _ just Andrew _ ”, but she did, and only then guilt catches up with her.

« I know that. »

Toni hums, comprehensive, as she adds: « You know I don’t believe in your same values. »

Shelby nods, and that’s an understatement, but she lets her continue with her point.

« So I’m not opposed to this happening again, even if you’re taken. »

Shelby looks up at that, because she wasn’t expecting that, of all things. She was expecting the jealous side of her, the defensive side of her, the ride or die, the unwilling to share. It’s new, and it feels like Toni handing her the truck without even thinking about it.

Shelby believes in her own values, she sticks to them, and her pager seems to follow them as well. She doesn’t half buy the story Toni told her about the Avi telling her to punch a kid, but that’s a whole other topic. Shelby believes in her values, which are Christian values, and are the values her dad taught her. She believes in them as she believes in the sun and in the sky, as she believes in the infallibility of the AI.   
But Shelby doesn’t like how her— whatever it is that she has with Toni is explained by those values. Because it’s supposed to be something sinful, something to deceive her from her future with Andrew. And perhaps that’s the case, because the temptation is supposed to be more attractive than the good path, and Shelby is as ashamed as positive to admit that what she’s feeling right now, an inch from Toni’s lips, pressing her against the door feels like something she’s never felt before. Not with Andrew’s hands under her shirt and his lips on her neck.

So Shelby takes her pager from her pocket and looks at it. She registers Toni rolling her eyes, ready to start a fight about it, and perhaps it feels inappropriate, in such an intimate moment, but her lips crash against Toni’s in an instant, right after that, kissing away every unborn complaint.

##  _ xxii — toni _

It becomes a habit. It starts with a messy rhythm, swinging on Shelby’s regretful avoidance and hungry afterthoughts. But it becomes a habit, after a talk they have on a sunny day, kneeled on Shelby’s bed.

It’s a summer morning and it’s the fifth day of the week, meaning that they’re on their break from school and their roommates are swimming in the Aviary pool.

Shelby has been pretending to study, and it’s been very amusing to watch, as she kept stealing glances behind her shoulder, from time to time, as Toni distracted herself with a wooden riddle box.

Shelby stands up, and drags her feet to where Toni is standing, in such a playful way that Toni feels five all over again. She puts the box on the nightstand and sits a bit straighter, either expecting a slap or a kiss — depending on where Shelby is standing, between her regret and her hunger.

But she’s neither this time, because she puts her arms around Toni’s neck and hugs her. They hardly ever hug, keeping the gesture for important matters. That alarms Toni a bit, who strokes her back, gently rocking her.

« What’s wrong, Shelbs? »

She feels Shelby shaking her head against her shoulder, rubbing it for the friction, and a muffled: « I don’t want to screw things up, Toni. »

It’s random, because they’ve been doing well so far. Toni sees their little agreement as a new sort of tool, something they unlocked that they’ve been using to help them during fights. And yes, those fights were now more frequent for that very same tool, but the overall gain was positive, right?

So it must be something else. Someone else. « With Andrew? »

She hears Shelby’s stifled laugh, and feels her hot breath against the fabric of her sweater.

« What’s so funny? » Toni tries again, but Shelby won’t look up at her.

« You know, perhaps he’s into open relationships. »

At that Shelby fully laughs, lifts her face, and Toni’s chest feels like doubling over at the sight. « Would you? » Shelby asks her, a sleeve on her eyes.

« With him? Hard pass, sorry Andry. »

Shelby laughs again, and what follows is a look that warms Toni up. That look is the reason Toni found herself kissing her, the first time. Overwhelmed. And it’s the reason that pushes her to lean forward too, this time.

She tastes something salty on Shelby’s lips, and at that Toni realizes that humor can’t be enough. She’s watched Shelby walk through her life with such fierceness, with something that forced everyone to either admire her or be jealous of her — Toni never found many chances to help her, and perhaps that was yet another reason why she pushed Shelby’s advice away. Not to incur in a debt of sorts, in a negative balance. But now Shelby is breaking apart right in front of her, and she’s partially the cause, so Toni can’t just keep tally.

She leans her forehead against Shelby’s, looking somewhere between their laps, thinking of ways that could help.

« You’re still following the Avi, right? So you can’t screw up. »

« I thought you didn’t trust it. »

« Indeed. Did you stop? Trusting it? »

Shelby chuckles at the cheeriness of Toni’s tone, as if she won something, but she shook her head, « Not really. »

Still, Toni thinks of something else. Something more powerful Shelby believes in.

« We could, you know, pray. For you not to screw up. »

Shelby looks surprised, and Toni still doesn’t believe in whatever they’re about to do, but she’ll stick with the acting if it can help her.

That’s how they find themselves on their knees, in front of each other, in silence. Shelby with her eyes shut down, a serious expression, while Toni peeking at her from time to time, silently counting in her head.

But she feels Shelby’s fingers brush her own, and they intertwine their fingers. So, since she’s at it, Toni gives praying a shot.

_ Don’t separate me from her, please. _

##  _ li — shelby _

Toni is avoiding her question, standing in front of her like that, both of them kneeling in the bedroom. She’s avoiding the question and is such a confirmation in Shelby’s eyes, that she can’t help feel the crying creep up from her throat and from the back of her eyes.

« We did screw up, at the end. » Shelby comments, as Toni is still keeping silent, staring at her. She ducks her head, a sleeve against her eyes, fighting with everything she has not to break down.

She feels Toni’s tentative hand on her shoulder, and it’s so light that she thinks Toni sees her as a stranger. As something unfamiliar, as someone she has forgotten already.

She’s silent for a long time, and the hand turns into two, then into a pressing against her torso, and a full embrace. Shelby wraps her arms around her, as sobs shake her. God, she hates that. She’s always the one pulling that scene up, while Toni has always been more reserved, locking herself in the bathroom and all that “tough guy” facade.

Shelby is desperate for Toni to say something, anything: to confirm it, to tell her that she did screw up, and that she’s the reason she’s leaving the Aviary. To deny it, to tell her that she didn’t screw up, that she did her best, but some things are just meant to end. And in the best-case scenario, in Shelby’s utopic dreams, to tell her that it isn’t the end at all. That she’s going to stay.

« You can come with me, you know. » Is what Toni tells her — and Shelby understands that she wasn’t desperate to hear anything. Not that. Because they’ve talked already, and they’re going to  _ die  _ outside, how can she still not comprehend it?

« You’re so fucking cruel. »

« Pardon? »

« You’re blackmailing me. So that you can leave and blame it all on me, because I didn’t follow you. » Shelby can only resort to a tool she’s learned from Toni herself, as she spits sentences like venom. Because Toni doesn’t get to do that to her, not in that situation. If they do end up drifting apart, she at least has to own her share of fault.

« Shelbs, don’t be stupid. You know- »

« Yeah, I know. I know everything that there is to know about you, Toni- » Shelby answers. with a hint of sadness, or perhaps disappointment, « and I know that you’re so fucking afraid of commitment, you’d rather go  _ die  _ outside. »

At that, Shelby feels Toni’s hands lifting from their hold, only to prove her right. Shelby’s laugh, hysterically, if there wasn’t so much at stake. If she didn’t feel like screaming and crying and kicking instead.

« It really isn’t what this is about. » Toni starts, but Shelby really doesn’t want to hear it. Because Toni’s next words are, once again: « It’s not about me, Shelbs, can’t you see? Why are you so afraid of going outside? Of leaving this shitty place that decides everything in your place? »

« You’re free to follow its advice,  _ you _ ’re the one who should know that! »

« Yeah but have you ever? Not followed its orders? » Shelby can’t really tell her, she can’t tell her the four times she’s ignored them.

##  _ xxiii — shelby _

It’s during one of their now regular make-out sessions, that things shift. They’re nineteen, a few months from separating paths: Toni is going to start her sanitation work early, while Shelby will specialize in maintenance. They’ll have different schedules, but they’ve talked about it, so they should still manage to make time for themselves.

Still, the lingering thought that these might be their last times — and Shelby tries her hardest not to think about what she might do if she actually gets assigned to Andrew, in five years — gnaws at the back of Shelby’s mind. Making her impatient, needy, hungry.

It’s a moan, and it’s never happened in the past year, not like  _ this _ . Not with this desperation, not with this sexual load, not as they’re alone in their room and they’re going to be for at least another hour.

Toni retracts a bit at that, surprised, but Shelby catches her lips once again. Because she is impatient, needy and hungry, and distance is the last thing she needs right now. What she needs is closeness, the kind of closeness that involves inglobation, swallowing, compenetration. Confusion of borders, limits, identities.

So Shelby’s hips start moving against Toni’s tight, and Toni breaks apart once again, with a slight panting, asking: « What do you want me to do? »

Toni is forthcoming, but isn’t disposable, available but not in the throwaway kind of way.   
But Shelby is impatient, needy and hungry, and she’ll inglobate, swallow and compenetrate what she’s willing to give her.

«  _ Anything _ . »

##  _ lii — toni _

Shelby turns around and lips under the bedsheets, with so much as a « ‘Night. »

They have three days left, and because of their work schedule, they boil down to a few hours, to a little more than one night. Toni still doesn’t understand her. She doesn’t understand her need for this artificial kind of reassurance. For someone to hold her hand and show her the way of every little thing she has to do. As if she hasn’t fully developed her critical sense as a child, as if her family has always been behind her, for every little step she took, taking credit.

Perhaps Shelby is just insecure, and it’s too late to change that. Confidence isn’t something Toni can give her. And it’s not the performative kind of confidence, because that’s something Toni has always found in her, as one of her most attractive qualities. Is the kind of fear for the unknown, the kind of belief that if you misbehave the slightest, you’ll be past redemption.

Toni turns around, their respective backs facing each other, and drifts to a dreams-filled slumber. Dreams of the past, of when Shelby’s insecurity still left space for Toni to step into her life.

##  _ xxiv — toni _

It’s something else, entirely. Toni has no idea when her love for women kicked in, perhaps it’s always been there, but she knows she recognized it in her early teen years, talking to pretty girls, being appreciated by them — and she was sure of it, the first time Regan fell apart under her touch.

But now, now it’s something else entirely. Because Shelby is trusting her with something they’ve never done before, something that Toni is afraid to ask if she’s experienced with Andrew before — and she shouldn’t care, she knows, because Toni and Shelby are nothing at this point: they’re friends, sure, but of a weird kind of friendship, of a jealous and filled with make-out sessions kind of friendship, a friendship either of them has ever had before — and something that Toni knows she has to do right.

They still have clothes on, as per usual, because what if someone enters? But Toni’s hand is under Shelby’s pants, above her underwear, and she has no idea what she’s doing. Because they have clothes on, and Shelby isn’t Regan, and Toni doesn’t know how to proceed. Their make-out served as foreplay, but can she still kiss her now? Now that there’s that going on, now that Shelby’s eyes are closed shut, now that her lips are parted and the column of her throat moves in search of air.

« Is this okay? » Toni has to ask, because that is something Regan taught her. To talk: before, during and after. That talking is better than silence, because even if one screws up, it sets a precedent.

Shelby nods, and Toni asks again: « Should I…? » It’s implicit, but Shelby nods again, and Toni’s hands slips past Shelby’s underwear.

And as Toni explores, feeling the way Shelby is worked up for her, witnessing her reactions to her different kinds of touches, she feels like watching the opera, or a thunderstorm.

And when Shelby comes, that is when Toni knows she doesn’t only love women’s bodies. She loves women per se, and she loves  _ a _ woman.

And that is when Toni knows she’s fucked up, too.


	4. so you can have two caged birds?

##  _ liii — shelby _

« What should we name it? » 

It’s the third evening, when Shelby asks her that question, as the both of them are on the couch with a drink in their hands.

That morning Shelby felt the mattress shift from Toni’s awaking, but Shelby pretended to be asleep, in order to avoid facing her. She hadn’t slept a wink, that night.

« Name the bird? » Toni asks, following Shelby’s gaze toward the cage on the corner of the living room.

« It’s a strawberry finch. » Toni says, as if Shelby has a clue of what that means. 

They’re silent for a moment, in which Shelby considers how Toni has always been so attracted to nature. Martha too was, and perhaps if Shelby hadn’t been in the picture, the two of them could have been great friends.

« Did you know they mate for life? Not all birds do. And when their mate dies, they mourn for a year or so. »

Shelby chuckles at that.

« What’s funny? » Toni asks her, and she answers: « How do they choose their mate? Is it random? »

She looks at Toni and sees her blinking, actually thinking about the answer. « Each bird has its own personality, you know. So they might have their own preferences too. » Shelby feels called out at Toni’s choice of words, before “ _ preference _ ” is something she used before to describe her. She’d take it back now, if she could.

Toni continues: « But I’ve never talked to a bird, so I wouldn’t know. »

Shelby smiles at her, and they stay like that for a moment. Because Shelby is fond of her, in her knowledge of specific wilderness notions, in her attempts at making her laugh and lighten the mood.

« How do people choose their mate? » Toni asks again, after taking a sip of her drink. « I mean, before the Avi. How did they do it? »

Shelby has seen patterns, while working with the Aviculturist’s algorithm, so she can answer that. « It’s the other way around. People choose their mates, they don’t know they’ve chosen them, and the AI shows them. »

A silence fills the room, because of the heavy implications. Toni smiles, of what looks like a bittersweet smile. « Is that so? » 

Shelby knows what that means, if that’s true. And it’d be less scary, if she thought that the Aviculturist was random, and its power only relied on the trust people gave to it. But she doesn’t, and what it means is that Toni is her- is that Shelby is going to mourn for a year or so, from two days on.

It’s too much, and Shelby offers to sleep on the couch. She can at least try and guard her heart, this time.

##  _ xxv — shelby _

They’ve done it a handful of times now, and each time Shelby feels as if someone was squeezing her heart. She’s never seen Toni like that: that vulnerable, that depended on her, that  _ loving  _ after. With sweet eyes reserved for her, as the hint of confusion from the first times, turns into a safe and tired smile.   
Shelby can’t get enough. It’s addicting, and it feels as if she was built to stay with Toni. Not only in those situations, but immediately before, and immediately after. Even if they agreed to avoid cuddling excessively, because of Toni’s « I can’t steal this from Andrew too, can I? », which shook Shelby, who should have been the one thinking about that.   
They still cuddle, because that’s what friends do, even if they never did it before.

It’s during one of these cuddling sessions, exactly a week before their upgrade to, respectively, work and specialization, that Toni asks her « What are we doing, Shelbs? »

They’re on Toni’s bed this time, on the higher bunker bed, and Shelby’s fingers are brushing patterns on Toni’s arm, as Toni’s ear is on Shelby’s chest, as if listening to her heartbeat.

« Uh, cuddling? Friendly cuddling. » Shelby answers, not exactly understanding the question.

« No, I mean. What are we doing, you and I? You know I don’t have your values, but what if Andrew was doing the same thing behind your back? »

« What are you suggesting exactly, Toni? » It’s too late to take things back, but Shelby can’t help but feel that Toni wants them to stop their deal, whatever that is. Shelby feels a pang of fear and anger, all of a sudden, as if being betrayed by Toni. She’s the one who got in her sins that deep, and Toni can’t leave her there to rot.

« I’m asking you why you’re still with him. Do you even care to build a relationship with him? With trust and honesty and all that? You said you wished for him to be your assigned person. And he’s a good guy, Shelby. He doesn’t deserve this. »

« You just said you don’t have my values, but you’re sounding quite moralistic right now. »

« I’m just trying to understand. »

So Shelby has to ask, as agonizing as that is. « Do you want us to stop?  _ This _ ? » 

« I want us to- to proceed, I don’t know. You might be okay with having one foot in two shoes, but we’re parting ways in a week, and after that, we’ll get assigned to people. You gotta start thinking about those things. »

It doesn’t feel like Toni at all, giving up on the present to think about the future. It’s so uncharacteristic, Shelby can’t help but wonder why she’s doing that.

« It’s an excuse, isn’t it? »

« ...An excuse for what? »

« Because you got tired of me? Or you met someone else perhaps. »

Toni sighs, and lets it go. Shelby has shown that side a few times by now, and Toni must have known better than to fuel her.

##  _ xxvi — toni _

Working is better than Toni expected it to be. She understands even less the rush of people her age for getting into specialization schools, or fourth schools, as she likes to call them.

For the first five years she’ll get assigned four partners and a supervisor from another Aviary to follow them, and after that, she’ll pick one of the partners to work with them for the rest of her life.

She meets Fatin, Rachel, and another guy she keeps forgetting the name of, because he’s shy and doesn’t speak much. In her group there is Martha too, and the first thing Toni does, is trying to bond with her — because they’ll be spending five years together, and because Martha seemed nice enough, despite the way Toni treated her, fifteen years ago.

##  _ xxvi — shelby _

The specialization is very different from the past three schools Shelby attended. It’s more specific, of course, but it’s the fact that it is full of people who actually want to be there and share the same interests that catch Shelby’s attention.

Her class is sorted in groups of five, and the people who stand out from her group are three girls. There’s Nora, who is frighteningly acculturated, and one could tell that she spent most of her spare time learning. Then there’s Leah, who has a sharp intuition, and gets to the solutions of the problems they’re given first, as if she has a sixth sense. There’s Dot too, and the thing that stands out about her is how resourceful she is. Leah guesses the direction they need to take, Nora fills them with the information they need, and Dot organizes the actual work. That leaves Shelby and the fifth guy with not much to do, as the three of them seem to work just fine — but that’s even more challenging in Shelby’s eyes, as every time she contributes, it feels like a victory.

##  _ xxviii — toni _

Shelby and Toni slowly drift apart, ever since Toni brought up the moral ambiguity of what they were doing. And yes, Toni didn’t care that much about it, but she couldn’t help feeling  _ used  _ by Shelby. She needed something to hold against her, something to find shelter in, because the growing feeling that Toni wanted  _ more  _ was eating her from the inside.   
That talk was the last time they saw each other, roughly a week ago.

Toni knows she did some damage, because she prodded Shelby right where it mattered to her, in her principles and her future. Toni regrets it, every day. She should have thought about it, and she should have voiced the actual reason she was bringing all that up.

But as the days pass by, and Shelby and she keep their cold war, it slowly feels like breathing again. Because Fatin makes her laugh, and Rachel is such an inspiration, with all her fierceness and determination, and Martha is actually the sweetest person she’s ever known.

So Toni feels as bad as she did for the past week, and for the days before: missing Shelby, feeling as if something is missing in their relationship. But she does feel like breathing again, as new people make their way into her life.

And apparently, Shelby does too, because the times they accidentally cross paths, in the smallness of the Aviary, she ignores her, and keeps talking with her new friends.

##  _ liv — toni _

Sleeping alone in that huge bed feels like the first time Toni slept alone, after that fight they had when they were nineteen — after a little less than fifteen years of almost uninterrupted sleeping together.   
The bed is cold and wide, and she’s small in it, curled up against Shelby’s pillow. She shouldn’t be, but she’s only human.

##  _ xxix — shelby _

Shelby found herself almost texting Toni for a little longer than five years. She almost texted her after that fight, she almost texted her every time she saw her in the Aviary, she almost texted her every time, late at night, she cried herself to sleep.

She never did though, because Toni would ask her if she was still with Andrew, if she didn’t feel guilty. Accusing her, and for what? Such a hypocrite.

So Shelby starts hating Toni, because it’s more sustainable for her heart. She starts blaming her, because it’s Toni who crushed every time they built over fifteen years of friendship in one single night.

##  _ lv — shelby _

The couch is so uncomfortable, that Shelby feels as if someone kicked her in the kidneys, waking up. Her alarm is on the floor, next to her, but she’s sure she forgot to bring it there, so it must be Toni’s doing. There’s no note to it, not like the juice.

##  _ xxx — toni _

She just turned twenty, the first time Toni finds out she can actually leave the Aviary. The thought crossed her mind when she was a child, and the Aviary was the symbol of her mom’s abandonment. It crossed her mind when Regan broke up with her too. And she kept thinking about it ever since her fight with Shelby.

She’s told that she can leave only on the fifth day of the fifth month of her twenty-fifth year, and Toni laughs in the functionary’s face, but they’re serious.

So Toni has only five years to go, before she can be free, and leave all this behind.

##  _ xxxi — shelby _

Shelby isn’t one to attend parties.   
She found out Andrew was cheating on her, his perfect-guy facade just appearance, after all. She feels worse, because now she doesn’t even have that consolation to hold on to, when thinking back on Toni.

So Shelby isn’t one to attend parties, but Dot and Leah drag her there, the very night she breaks up with Andrew.

She’s twenty-three, and in two years she’ll get assigned to someone. And because Shelby has studied how the algorithm works for three years now, she knows she has to help it and meet new people, otherwise she might be assigned to the fifth guy, and she would really rather not.

Except she’s had one too many drinks now, she’s never heard this kind of music before and she’s on the verge of dry humping with a stranger.

That’s when she catches  _ her  _ gaze, across the room. Her heart leaps, and Toni hasn’t noticed yet, as she tries talking above the music with three friends she’s seen her with before. One looks angry, one looks slightly uncomfortable, and the third looks like she’s having the time of her life, scanning for people to pole dance against.

Shelby turns around, ready to leave, as her breath quickens. She can’t be here, and she’s suddenly reminded  _ why  _ she doesn’t attend parties. Because they’re Toni’s scene, and they have this silent agreement on avoiding each other, now.

But Dot catches her wrist, asks her if she’s okay. Shelby nods and heads for the bathroom, as for getting out of the local she’d have to walk right in front of Toni and her friends.

Once there, she splashes cold water on her face. She needs to sober up. The bathroom artificial lights are too strong for her, as she squints her eyes, and now her make-up is ruined. She grabs some paper towel and tries fixing it, when the bathroom door swings open, and she catches Toni’s gaze through the mirror.

Both of them freeze.

##  _ lvi — toni _

This is the last night she’ll spend with Shelby. Tomorrow morning she’ll pack up — except she won’t, because she isn’t allowed to bring anything outside — and she’ll finally leave the Aviary.

On her way back home — “ _home_ ”, she scoffs, — she takes some extra time. She walks slower than usual, dragging her feet, delaying the inevitable.   
She doesn’t want to come home. And she doesn’t want to think why. The easy way would be thinking that she hates Shelby, now. She treated her so badly that it’s the only logical way to feel towards her. But it doesn’t sit right with Toni.

She doesn’t want to leave.

##  _ xxxii — toni _

Toni doesn’t know what is the appropriate thing to say. Should she just ignore her?   
She’d never expect to see Shelby at a party, because- well, she just doesn’t, and it feels like a shock.

So Toni just walks next to her, washing her hands from the sticky drink Martha spilled on her.

She feels Shelby’s gaze on her, across the mirror, but she just keeps her eyes locked on her task at hand. She can’t look at her. She hasn’t seen her in three years, for fuck’s sake.

She hears Shelby scoffing. « So, are you just going to ignore me? »

Toni’s mouth twists in contempt. It feels as if Shelby is here on purpose, just to see her suffer. « What are you doing here, Shelby? »

« Last time I checked this was a public space. »

Toni shakes her head a little, « We both know this is not your element. Don’t you have a husband to please with a praying session, back home? »

It’s a low blow, it’s uncalled for, but it feels as if Shelby just ripped a bandaid out of their wounded relationship.

It’s a matter of a moment, and Shelby’s lips are on hers. Toni closes her eyes, and it feels like being nineteen all over again. With butterflies in her chest every time Shelby opens her mouth, smiles at her, or just exists. She feels safe, and she feels as if they’re going to spend the rest of their life together, happily.   
But Toni opens her eyes. She pushes Shelby back a little, and she wishes she hadn’t returned the kiss, because she’d have a clearer mind to make her point come across, now.

She can’t do this. Shelby didn’t even try and talk to her. Is she just a toy to fuck around with? But Toni needs closure, and perhaps she can turn Shelby into a toy too, if she tries hard enough.

So she kisses Shelby again.

And as she holds Shelby against the sink, Toni between her legs, a hand moving inside of her, she needs to remind herself that that’s not what it used to be. That’s not them making love. Making a promise, coronating their life-long friendship. They’re not each other’s person anymore.

So she needs to remind herself that, because Shelby looks as sweet as she always did, and she no longer looks like a girl, but like her own woman. And on top of everything else, Toni cannot feel that sheer admiration again. Because Shelby ghosted her.

So she says, whispering, directly to Shelby’s ear: « Is this what you want me for? Just a firm fuck? You’re so drunk you won’t even remember it. Will you disappear again, Shelbs? Will you be praying this away on your knees, tomorrow? »

When Shelby comes, Toni has to interpret the glisten in her eyes as a symptom of pleasure, and not a cry for help. Or she’ll feel guilty, and Toni can’t endure the idea that she hurt Shelby, as much as she’d love to.

##  _ xxxiii — shelby _

Shelby studied the bureaucratic procedure for when a person wants to leave the Aviary. It slips past her comprehension of why anyone would want that, and she hadn’t received one single request in three years of apprenticeship.

Until she gets one, the first and last, and it’s so fucking ironic.

It’ Toni, of course it’s her, and it’s a week after the party. She’s two years early to have the request done, but she has that “I own this place” kind of expression that it looks as if it was planned.

When Toni is shown the way to Shelby’s desk, from which she’s been watching her for the past few minutes, Shelby distinctively registers Toni’s discomfort on her face.

She even laughs, probably feeling the irony too.

« I’m here for the fledge. »

Shelby nods, tapping in her computer, printing a form. She hands Toni the sheet. « Fill this in. »

It’s cold and formal, but looking at Toni stings like it never did. Shelby wasn’t nearly drunk enough to forget what she told her, a week ago. And as she looks at Toni, she’s no longer supposed to see the five-year-old with the truck, or the friend who’s always been there for her.

Except she does, and she hates herself for that.

After that, Toni hands her the paper back and they don’t talk to each other ever again.

##  _ lvii — shelby _

They’ve talked millions of times about how stupid it is to fledge, hypothetically. Neither of them knew it was a concrete opportunity, until Shelby studied it and Toni filled the form, two years ago. But their discourses still stood: it’s stupid, and Shelby still can’t believe Toni is actually leaving tomorrow morning.

It's painstakingly obvious, how she doesn’t want her to. Because for the past two years Shelby kept thinking about it. How she should have texted her, how she should have told her that was a mistake. She was fine with Toni ignoring her, as long as she was safe. But she would no longer be, and Shelby couldn’t let that happen.

That ensemble of never-sent texts is what Shelby considers being the third time she ignored the Aviculturist, which kept telling her to reach back to Toni. If she considered every single text, Shelby has ignored the AI thousands of times, now.

As she waits for Toni to come back, the dinner is in the oven and the strawberry finch is singing for her.

Shelby sits on the couch, looking at it. It has pretty velvet feathers, and chirps for most of the time. It’s all alone in its metallic white cage, which has seeds in a little bowl and water in the one next to it. Shelby is sure Toni is taking care of it, as she’s never filled either of them yet.

Shelby hears the door unlocking. She still herself with every step she hears, and from the pace, she can tell Toni is looking for her.

« Shelbs? » She calls, and Shelby feels like being punched at the domesticity of it all.

She swallows the feeling and answers: « I’m here! »

When Toni appears by the door, and Shelby is looking at her over her shoulder, they smile at each other. Toni tells her she’s taking a shower, and they can dine after. Shelby just nods, holding her own arms.

She looks back at the bird. She wishes Toni would name it, so she’d have something to be reminded of, from tomorrow. If she doesn’t, she might as well just call it Toni.   
Shelby wonders how long birds live, and if she’ll have to mourn after its death too.

When Toni comes back a quarter-hour later, with wet hair and comfy clothes, Shelby asks her.

« How long do birds live? »

Toni leans on the back of the couch, stretching, and Shelby is reminded once again of how different their jobs are. « It depends on the species. Our little guy might live eight to seventeen years. »

Shelby nods. « Do you think it’s lonely? » She asks Toni.

« I don’t know, Shelby. »

Shelby doesn’t know why she feels so worried about it. It feels like the most important thing in the world for her, right now. « I’ll ask the Aviculturist to give it a mate. »

« So you can have two caged birds? Ask the Avi to free it, instead. So that it can find its own mate. »

Shelby licks her lips, pensive. They have such different ways to think, that what Toni suggested didn’t even cross her mind.

They stay there for a moment, until the oven’s alarm rings. Both of them stand up, but Shelby puts a hand on Toni’s shoulder, to tell her she’s got it.   
It’s light, it’s quick, but Shelby’s fingers feel like burning, and Toni looks as if she just kissed her — with all the sweet confusion her eyes often spoke to Shelby.

After a while Shelby brings two plates in the living room, and they put them on the low glass table that is meant for everything but hosting meals.

« Do you think it’s lonely? » Shelby asks once more, after they small talked a little about their day at work.

« The bird? » Shelby nods, and Toni shighs. « I don’t know Shelby, I’m not a bird expert. »

« You sound like one. »

Toni shakes her head, « Well, I’m not. I don’t know why it still sings, even if it’s caged. » 

And with that Toni stands up, picks both of their empty plates, and brings them in the kitchen. When Shelby hears the water running, she picks up that Toni must be doing the dishes.

« Let me help you. » Shelby urges, walking in the kitchen too.

« Nah I’ve got this, you cooked already. »

Shelby just leans on the kitchen table. She’s not leaving the room, as those are the last few hours they’re going to spend together, according to Toni.

She shouldn’t have, but she finds herself asking: « Will you sleep with me tonight? »

She sees Toni’s arms going still, as if paralyzed for a moment. Shelby has no idea what she’s thinking about, so she tries to clarify. Because she wasn’t drunk enough to forget Toni’s words, that evening of five years ago, at the party’s bathroom.

« I just mean sleeping. We don’t even have to cuddle, if you don’t want to. »

Toni takes her gloves off, washes her hands and turns the tap off. She holds herself up with her hands on the counter, shoulders tense, and by her position, Shelby only sees her back.

Shelby feels her eyes burning, a so familiar sensation that she’d rather be everywhere else but here. Except she doesn’t, thinking a bit more about it, because everywhere else there isn’t with Toni, and as much as she hurts her — as much as she makes her cry — Shelby would choose her a thousand times over everything else.   
She should have followed the AI’s advice. She should have reached out, when she could. And now the time is running out, and tears are threatening to fall, humiliating and pathetic.

But Toni turns around. She turns around and Shelby expects anger, annoyment, or indifference from her face. But she finds her eyes red, her lower lip trembling, and Toni gets closer.

The kiss tastes like salt, and Shelby doesn’t know whose tears those are. It’s slow and it’s chaste, it only lasts a moment before Toni is hugging her, hiding her face between Shelby’s neck and shoulder.

##  _ lviii — toni _

Toni doesn’t know why the caged bird sings, and neither does Shelby, apparently. What Toni knows is that would take everything back. She would go twenty years back in time and avoid all that. She could just leave, that way. Or she could just never develop that urge to get as far away from Shelby as possible.

But Toni is just holding on to Shelby right now, as Shelby keeps telling her that she can revoke the paper, that she’s still in time. And it sounds so sweet in Toni’s ears, too good to be true.   
And it’s even less sweet than what Shelby tells her after, how she missed her, how she shouldn’t have let her go. And Toni shouldn’t, she really shouldn’t, but she lets Shelby know that she feels the same exact way. That not a day goes by, that guilt eats her.   
Shelby must take that as a sort of confirmation, because she smiles at her in such a Shelby way, with the smile Toni fell in love with. She fell in love with Shelby, somewhere along the path. Perhaps from the moment she took her truck, from the moment she kept her from throwing that airplane, from the moment she destroyed Martha’s sandcastle just to get Shelby’s attention. From their first kiss, from the way Regan’s were never quite right, from the way Toni would be willing to let Shelby to Andrew, if he was what she wanted. She was willing to compromise. From the first time she saw Shelby falling apart under her, from the way Shelby knew how to touch her, from the way she held her after. Toni didn’t know when, and she didn’t even know if it was gradual, but she fell in love with Shelby Goodkind.

She hated the Aviary. It was her mom’s rejection, it was the AI’s control over her, it was something she never asked for. It was her cage, while she just wanted to fly. But there were moments Toni felt like she was free. She still sang, when she was with Shelby.   
But Toni still didn’t know why the caged bird sang. Perhaps the Aviary was Shelby’s cage too, where she took shelter in, from the adversities of the outside world. Or perhaps her cage was her family, her religion, the expectations she felt. And Shelby still sang, she still shone, exceeding those expectations over and over again.

By the time morning comes, Toni still doesn’t know why the caged bird sings.   
The truck is under their home — their  _ home _ — to take her away, and Shelby has the form in her hands, ready to counter-sign it and tear it apart, as soon as Toni tells her to. She has to choose whether to give up on her freedom, or her happiness, and Toni thought she had already chosen, last night, as she sang between Shelby’s arms. But now she feels the cold metal bars of that cage, the little door opening that is the truck, and she can’t comprehend why Shelby won’t fly away with her. What Shelby’s cage is — if it’s Toni herself, perhaps.

So Toni stays there, paralyzed, between the love of her life, the dream of a lifetime, and the chirping of their feathered flatmate — because she still can’t make a sense out of the singing of a caged bird.

The thing is, she was told that she could leave only on the fifth day of the fifth month of her twenty-fifth year. She could only leave right now, and if she wasted that opportunity, the Aviary’s doors would be forever closed for her.

But that never stopped Toni. Because she wasn’t supposed to, but she still threw that airplane. She wasn’t supposed to, but she still destroyed Shelby and Martha’s sandcastle. She wasn’t supposed to, but she still attended that party, and punched that kid, and helped Shelby cheat on Andrew. So Toni nods in Shelby’s direction, to send the truck away, because it won’t be yet another Aviculturist’s imposition to stop her from fledging, whenever she’ll feel like it. Bringing Shelby with her, perhaps, the next time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so open endings are my favourites, and the initial idea was cutting the story right before the last paragraph. this way it's more a delayed ending rather than an open one, because toni didn't flee, but she still plans to do so, sometime in the future. i dunno, it felt like an appropriate compromise. surely making them stay in a happy ending sort of way was like disregarding the toxicity of the relationship they nurtured up to that point. but, well, it's over, and i hope you liked reading this piece just as much as i enjoyed writing it!

**Author's Note:**

> so, i've attempted twice at writing for this fandom, and i think this is the right one. the very first draft for this was very different: it was supposed to be a fill-in for what happens between day 23 and the moment they're rescued, while the second one was a hockey au, that was a bit too cliche and had very little of my writing stile. the first was too ambitious and the second too lazy, so here's what i actually want to leave for this fandom.


End file.
